


Kaleidoscope

by aserenitatum



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Marriage of Convenience, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2019-10-14 07:10:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 48,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17503967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aserenitatum/pseuds/aserenitatum
Summary: (/kəˈlaɪdəskoʊp/),nounA tube with mirrors tilted towards each other and coloured pieces of glass or paper. The pieces never change, and the mirrors never move, but the reflections of the pieces on the glass can yield infinite patterns, and with a simple twist, everything can change in an instant.or, the one with a marriage of convenience





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have taken canon and changed it because I want to and I can. It's _mostly_ the same and what's different will be explained and explored (peep that chapter count, friends)
> 
> In any case, enjoy!

Stacie’s gotten used to the sounds of an annoyed Aubrey coming home from work, but a door slam that she both feels with her feet on the floor and hears through her noise-cancelling headphones needs a reacting to, so Stacie reluctantly pauses her video game to turn to the blonde, eyes widening when she can see the angry energy practically radiating off her skin.  

“Where’s the bat?” Aubrey growls, chucking her bag onto the kitchen bar and stepping out of her shoes while looking around the house wildly.   

“Oh, no way,” Stacie mumbles immediately, hops over the back of the couch and runs to the hall closet, getting there a second before Aubrey does and grabbing the baseball bat they keep there, holds it behind her back as she turns to face Aubrey, the bat out of reach as Aubrey tries to reach around her body for it and fails.  

“Stacie, give me the fucking bat,” Aubrey threatens but Stacie stands her ground, shakes her head.  

“No way. You’re gonna murder someone with it,” Stacie says even as Aubrey pushes her up against the wall and tries for the wooden bat again.   

“That’s the point,” Aubrey says darkly.  

“No. You’re allowed to have it when you calm down a little,” Stacie says.  

“I won’t need it once I’m calm.”  

“Exactly,” Stacie says and Aubrey’s lip curls as she stomps away.  

Stacie considers returning the bat to its spot but then she sees Aubrey poke her head around the doorway, eyes flickering to the hall closet, and Stacie decides to hang onto it to keep it safe.  

“I’ll wrap your hands so you can hit the bag but you’re not gonna hit it with our bat because you’re going to break it,” Stacie says calmly, following Aubrey into the kitchen and the blonde looks longingly at the bat that Stacie’s got slung over her shoulder.  

“No, by the time you wrap them I’ll have calmed down,” Aubrey says, shoulders slumping.  

“Maybe it’s worth wrapping them preemptively,” Stacie argues and Aubrey frowns at the words. “For when I ask what happened and you get all fired up again.”  

“My father is in town,” Aubrey says simply and Stacie turns and walks away. Aubrey frowns at the reaction, her annoyance flaring up again until she sees Stacie return with her boxing hand wraps, already unrolling one while gesturing to Aubrey to hold her left hand out. “Seriously?”  

“Just in case,” Stacie says, and Aubrey wants to ask what she’s done with the bat but she refrains.  

She watches in silence as Stacie expertly wraps Aubrey’s hand, going through the motions and securing it in place and Aubrey curls her hand into a fist as Stacie wraps her fingers around her wrist and smacks her open palm against Aubrey’s closed fist a few times. She repeats the motion with the other hand and Aubrey’s hands move almost automatically as she bumps her knuckles together, making Stacie smile.  

“Come on,” Stacie says, motioning with her head and she quickly grabs her phone from the couch before following Aubrey down the stairs to their basement. “Tell me what happened,” Stacie says, presses her back against the wall and slides down to sit on the floor and Aubrey just stands in front of her, arms crossed and expression angry.  

“Can I have the bat?” Aubrey asks but Stacie shakes her head.  

“What’s the point, your hands are already wrapped,” Stacie says with a teasing grin. “If you’re gonna abuse the punching bag you might as well use your hands.”  

“But it’s less fun.”  

“Aubrey.”  

“Fine. My father came to visit. Said the same bullshit about family affairs and legacies and commitment.”  

“That’s not new, is it?” Stacie asks and Aubrey shakes her head. “So why the Hulk impersonation?”  

“He said that he’d been in Dallas and that it was so beautiful to see Grant with his family and how nice it was to see Grant value family above everything else,” Aubrey starts, her anger building as she speaks. “As if he didn’t walk away at the first fucking chance and as if I haven’t dedicated my life to this _family_.”  

“Okay…” Stacie says to keep her rant moving forward and focused instead of breaking away on a tangent.  

“And then he said what a shame it is that I don’t have a family and can’t seem to make a commitment to anybody.”  

Stacie grimaces then.  

“And of course he wants me to be a great leader but how can I lead his company if I can’t even lead my own non-existent family?”  

Aubrey looks like she’s about to scream so Stacie points to the punching bag and says, “Hit.”  

Her fist connects neatly with the punching bag and Stacie’s eyes flicker upwards because she hits it so hard the chain rattles a little bit and Stacie’s proud of her foresight not to give Aubrey the baseball bat.  

“What does that mean?”  

“It means—” Punch. “—that he’s not stepping down.” Punch, punch.  

“Like, soon, or?”  

“I.” Punch. “Don’t.” Punch. “Know.”  

There’s something hilarious and adorable about seeing Aubrey in a dark grey business dress, barefoot, with her hands wrapped in neon yellow boxing tape and hair falling out of the bun at the nape of her neck, beating the shit out of their punching bag but Stacie doesn’t dwell on that for too long, lets Aubrey’s words roll around in her head for a little bit before answering while the woman unleashes her anger.  

Aubrey’s skin is glistening with sweat by the time she starts slowing down and Stacie just watches her silently, waits for Aubrey to take a deep breath and finally turn to her.  

“Do you want to come to dinner tomorrow night?” Aubrey asks and Stacie barks out a laugh.  

“With you and your father?”  

“And his new girlfriend,” Aubrey provides.  

“Absolutely not, but thank you for the invite.” Aubrey shoots her a glare but there’s no fire in her eyes anymore so Stacie smiles widely. “How long has this new girlfriend been around for?”  

“Couple of weeks,” Aubrey says with a shrug. 

“Do you need to—?” Stacie gestures to the punching bag and Aubrey follows her line of vision, shakes her head.  

“She’s not gonna make the cut.”  

“What makes you say that?”  

“She’s a redhead,” Aubrey explains and Stacie scoffs.  

“You know your dad’s an old school misogynist,” Stacie comments.  

“Yeah I know.”  

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that he’s just saying shit because he’s never going to give you his company.”  

“I’m starting to think that too,” Aubrey says softly, her left hand flailing out to half-heartedly punch the bag, not really to release anger, just to hit it and dispel some annoyance and she’s still facing Stacie so there’s no force behind it as she keeps her fist pressed against the red leather. “But I still have to try.”  

“Yeah.”  

“Can you not bring anybody home tomorrow night?” Aubrey asks softly.  

“Sure,” Stacie gives with an easy shrug. “But why?”  

“I’ll almost definitely need to hit something and I don’t want a stranger thinking you live with a crazy person,” Aubrey explains and she’s already glaring preemptively when she sees Stacie’s mouth twitch in a badly-concealed grin.  

“But I do live with a crazy person.”  

Aubrey rolls her eyes as she turns away to start removing the boxing bandages.  

“Where are you guys going?”  

“Same as usual.”  

“Hakkasan?” Stacie asks excitedly and Aubrey looks at her to nod. “Can you bring me some?”  

“I won’t be back until late,” Aubrey says in a soft tone, not to say she’s unwilling but more as a concerned warning to Stacie.  

“Whatever, I’ll get a late lunch and hang out at the lab,” Stacie says. “Everything will be okay if you come home with dim sum for me.”  

“Sure,” Aubrey says with a tired smile, unwrapping the last of the boxing tape from her hands and flexing her fingers. “You’re not working too hard, are you?”  

Stacie quirks an eyebrow at her and Aubrey rolls her eyes before shooting her a pointed look. “I’ll be fine.”  

“I heard you last night up until late,” Aubrey says and Stacie stands up, struggling to get off the floor as she moves closer to Aubrey.  

“How would you know I was up late if you weren’t also up late?” Stacie asks.  

“Touché.”  

 

* * *

 

When Aubrey comes home the next night after dinner, the front door clicks closed and the keys slide into the bowl near the door and the high heels aren’t kicked off but stepped out of and Aubrey pads barefoot into the kitchen for cutlery, almost soundlessly closes the drawer and then moves to the living room to drop off Stacie’s dinner.  

“Here you go,” Aubrey says with a sweet smile but her eyes are flashing with fury. “Bon appétit.”  

“Aubrey?” Stacie tries carefully but Aubrey just smiles, turns and walks away and by the time Stacie hears the hall closet door open and close quietly, it’s too late to do anything.  

She doesn’t even get up, waits for the loud scream, closing her eyes and nodding when she hears it. There’s a distinct whack and then a loud cracking sound and moments later Aubrey is slowly coming back up the stairs, unnervingly quiet as she drops onto the couch next to Stacie.  

Stacie follows her movements closely, head turned towards the blonde and too afraid of saying a word, feels like any sound she makes could be the pin that pops the balloon.  

“I broke our bat.” 

“Okay.” 

“Can you wrap my hands?” 

“Okay.” 

Aubrey doesn’t move an inch though so Stacie stays put.  

“I have to get married, so please, for the love of God, Stacie, wrap my hands.” 

“I’m afraid to touch you right now,” Stacie tries to tease and that does it as Aubrey springs up from the couch in a fury.  

“I have to get fucking _married_  because my father—who hasn’t held onto a girlfriend for longer than a year in over thirty years—thinks my relationship commitment issues translate into my work life and mean that if I can’t even commit and be loyal to one person, I couldn’t possibly do that for a whole company.”  

Stacie opts not to point out the hypocrisy of Aubrey’s father’s words, instead goes with, “And that’s a must? Getting married?” 

“Remember how he said I’d get the company at 30?” Aubrey asks and Stacie mutely nods. “Turns out he said 30 because he thought for sure I’d have settled down by then.” 

“Yikes.”  

“I won’t get the company as long as I’m unmarried, so I have to get married. I want that company, it’s my right. I have given everything to it and I deserve this. My father has been grooming me for this since I was five years old and now he’s going to take it away because I haven’t, what, met my one true love yet? That’s bullshit. Not being married doesn’t stop me from doing my fucking job. That company is _mine_  and he’s holding it hostage because he thinks I’m being a petulant child who won’t do what he wants.” 

“I don’t disagree,” Stacie starts, “But you sound a little…” She trails off, tries to find the right word but Aubrey’s always been the better one with words. 

“Just say it, I won’t get mad.”  

“That’s… historically inaccurate,” Stacie teases and Aubrey relaxes, shoulders slumping a little as she cracks a smile.  

“Is it?”  

“Hey, randomly,” Stacie starts and Aubrey narrows her eyes, knows it isn’t random in the least. “Do you remember how, when you were a junior and I was a sophomore, I quit the Bellas because Alice was being a grade-A bitch and I had better things to do than spend my time getting yelled at during practice?” Stacie asks and Aubrey nods. “And remember how, when you were a senior, you begged me to come back to the Bellas because you needed people and I told you I’d come back only if you promised not to yell at me like Alice did?” Aubrey nods again. “And remember how you’d get annoyed at me anyway and ended up yelling at Chloe for the whole year?”  

“What’s your point?” Aubrey asks, arms crossed. 

“You have a history of unleashing your anger on innocent people,” Stacie says, pointing to herself.  

“That was…” Aubrey trails off before saying ‘different’ because she knows Stacie’s right and she’s trying to be a better person, which includes owning up to her flaws. “Yeah, okay. You’re right.”  

“Thank you.”  

“Just… say what you wanted to say anyway. I’ll try not to get mad,” Aubrey says with a sigh.  

Stacie looks hesitant, but a cursory glance over Aubrey’s body tells her that the woman’s calmed down enough not to take her words personally. “It sounds entitled.”  

Stacie still holds her breath in anticipation of a bad reaction because she’s not stupid but the words seem to have the opposite effect, Aubrey deflating completely and she sighs as she drops onto the couch heavily.  

“I know,” she says and Stacie pats her shoulder so Aubrey slides sideways and leans her head there. “But I am entitled. I _feel_ entitled.”  

“So get married and get your company.”  

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Stacie, but I don’t exactly have a parade of people coming through my bedroom to choose from,” Aubrey says, her voice soft but her words sharp and she closes her eyes as soon as the words leave her mouth, her insinuation towards Stacie unfair but the woman just hums in response and when Aubrey lifts her head and opens her eyes again, Stacie’s pouting which is definitely not the reaction she’d been expecting. “What?”  

“I thought you were going to say ‘banging down my door’ so I’m a little disappointed I won’t get to make a banging joke,” Stacie explains and Aubrey laughs and leans in to put her head on Stacie’s shoulder again. “You know, this is what the internet is for.”  

“I’m not going to marry a total stranger. That would be…”  

“An overreaction?” Stacie tries to provide and it’s not the word Aubrey had been looking for but it’s good enough so she nods. “You’d just get married, wait until your dad finally gives you what’s rightfully yours and then get divorced, no harm no foul.”  

“And what if it takes years? And I’m shackled to a stranger for years because my father’s an asshole?”  

“Then you wait years,” Stacie says with a rueful smile, leaning forward to grab her bag of food from the coffee table, unpacking it and reaching for the chopsticks Aubrey brought her from the kitchen.   

“And put my whole personal life on hold?”  

“What personal life?” Stacie teases and Aubrey pokes her side, hard. Stacie giggles, squirms out of the way, conscious of her food and when Aubrey drops her hand again she moves back, shifts to cross her legs under her body and place the take out box on her lap. “When’s the last time you had sex, Aubrey?”  

“I don’t know, maybe four months ago?” Aubrey muses aloud.  

“The short blonde girl? With the bangs?” Stacie asks and Aubrey nods.  

“Diana.”  

“Jesus, that was so long ago and she wasn’t even that great in bed.”  

That gives Aubrey pause and she frowns, lifting her head to level a quizzical look at Stacie. “How would you know that?”  

“I didn’t sleep with her,” Stacie says, rolling her eyes and waving her hand dismissively. “Did she make you come?”  

“Yes.”  

“Did you have to work for it?”  

Aubrey doesn’t respond immediately so Stacie has her answer.  

“You know who was good to you? That super hot tall black girl,” Stacie says, pointing her chopsticks at Aubrey before reaching down to pop a piece siu mai in her mouth.  

“Oh, _Candice_ ,” Aubrey says, a small smile already unfurling on her face as her eyes take on a faraway look.  

“Candice,” Stacie echoes, dragging out the name. “She made you scream.”  

“She was _good_.”  

“Whatever happened to her?”  

“Moved to LA.”  

“Why?” Stacie asks in disgust.  

“Wants to be an actress.”  

“And another San Francisco gay lost to showbiz. Shame.”  

“Truly,” Aubrey gives with a dejected sigh.  “How’s the food?”  

“Delicious,” Stacie says, popping a dumpling into her mouth and smiling around it.  

“Do you need the bathroom?”  

“You’re gonna take a bath?” Stacie asks and when Aubrey nods she finishes chewing and sets her food on the coffee table again before darting to their shared bathroom. “I turned on the water for you,” Stacie says when she comes back and Aubrey looks exhausted but she still smiles.  

“Thanks.”  

“Have fun.”  

“Yeah, you too,” Aubrey says, nudging her before walking past her towards the bathroom.  

Stacie eats her dinner and she stares at the paused game on tv, picking up the controller once she’s done but she doesn’t do anything as she mulls over Aubrey’s words. 

 

* * *

 

“Hey—” she says as she opens the bathroom door and leans in.  

“Stacie!” Aubrey screeches.  

“—are you going to marry a guy?” Stacie asks, ignoring Aubrey’s protest.  

“You’re letting all the cold air in!”  

“Fine, sorry,” she says, steps into the bathroom and closes the door behind her. “Are you going to marry a guy? Because I love you, but bringing a man into our living situation is asking for trouble.”  

“No.” Aubrey’s quiet for a long time then and Stacie leans back against the bathroom door, patiently waiting for the rest of the sentence but Aubrey just sighs deeply and murmurs, “Shit.”  

“Are you decent?”  

“Yeah, come on,” Aubrey says and Stacie pushes off from the door and walks over, dropping down onto the floor next to the bathtub, pressing her back against the opposite wall and stretching out her legs, barely has to point her toes to touch the bathtub and Aubrey slides the curtain open partway so Stacie can see her face.  

Stacie’s distracted by the black water surrounding Aubrey and when she shifts, parts of her neck come up splotchy and dark.  

“Jesus christ, what are you sitting in?”  

“It’s Cuvee’s new black champagne bath bomb,” Aubrey says, lifting a stained arm out of the water to swirl her hand in it.  

“You have a problem,” Stacie says, barely containing a grin.  

“I have a lot of problems, leave me alone,” Aubrey snaps but she’s pouting as she says the words and Stacie laughs.  

She falls quiet after a while and Aubrey’s eyes are closed, her head leaning back against the edge of the bathtub but Stacie knows she’s not asleep because her hand is still randomly swirling in her bathwater.  

“I didn’t realise…” she says softly, pauses. “I guess I just didn’t figure that getting married would change our living situation.”  

“When you marry someone, you have to live with them,” Stacie points out obviously and Aubrey hums in agreement, nods slowly.  

She turns her head to meet Stacie’s eyes, shoots her a sad smile. “I didn’t even stop to think about it. I figured I’d get married and get my company. That’s as far as I got.”  

“That’s why I asked,” Stacie says softly. “And I wouldn’t mind someone moving in but not a guy. He’ll ruin our dynamic.”  

“And a woman wouldn’t?” Aubrey comments even though there’s another part of Stacie’s sentence that she’s going to have to address.  

“Meh,” Stacie says with a shrug. “It won’t be as disruptive. But that’s only if…”  

“If?” 

“If you marry a woman.”  

“I’m gay, why wouldn’t I marry a woman?” Aubrey asks, brows knitting together as she turns to look at Stacie again.  

“Because you’re not getting married for love, you’re getting married to please your dad.”  

“Ew don’t say it like that,” Aubrey says and Stacie barks out a laugh.  

“I didn’t mean it in a sexual way, you dirty girl,” Stacie taunts and Aubrey flicks some water at her, making Stacie squeal and duck out of the way. “I mean that he’s not gonna like the concept of you being married to a woman.”  

“Well, then he should have specified,” Aubrey says, crossing her arms. “If I’m going to play by his rules and jump through hoops, I’m going to do it my way.”  

“I admire that,” Stacie says, nodding. “He can’t question your commitment or your ballsiness if you marry a woman.”  

“And if he says he wanted me to marry a man, he’s just homophobic and it shows that he never meant for me to be happily married, just married off.”  

“Well,” Stacie says, patting the floor one as she shifts, getting ready to stand up. “Be sure to make your future wife sign a prenup and please invite me to your wedding.”  

“Hey,” Aubrey calls out, halting Stacie mid-groan as she tries to stand up. “There’s a second problem.”  

Stacie whines as she drops back to the floor, slouching against the wall again and Aubrey twists so she can cross her arms over the side of the bathtub and look at the woman. 

“I don’t want us to stop living together,” Aubrey says softly and maybe it’s the exhaustion of her long day at work but Stacie’s not following.  

“Why would we?”  

“Because we don’t have space here. I can’t exactly make her sleep on the couch, that’s barbaric,” Aubrey says, lifting her eyebrows pointedly and Stacie’s a little ashamed of how long it takes her to get the point, mouth dropping open in a silent “Oh” once she finally does.  

“You’re not going to sleep with her? Or, she’s not going to sleep with you.”  

“I don’t even know who I’m going to ask but I’m betting it’s gonna be a no. That’s… way too intimate.”  

“Don’t you think it’s kind of ironic that you’re going to get married to prove to your dad that you don’t have commitment issues and can be loyal to your company, while at the same time having such a fear of intimacy that you won’t share a bed with someone?”  

“I share a bed with you,” Aubrey says haughtily, refusing to admit that Stacie might be right.  

“Yeah but it’s _me_  and you only crawl into my bed to watch tv because you’re too stubborn to get a tv in your own bedroom,” Stacie shoots back immediately.  

“It messes with the serenity of the room! It’s not feng shui,” Aubrey protests and Stacie narrows her eyes at the blonde.  

“I’m pretty sure a mirror facing the bed isn’t feng shui either but because you have a mirror kink, that’s apparently okay.”  

“I do not have a—!” Aubrey pauses to clear her throat. “What would even make you say that?”  

Stacie grins, the blush creeping up Aubrey’s cheeks unmistakeable.  

“Because it’s true.” 

“Let’s not pretend you don’t have your fair share of kinks, or that you don’t enjoy looking at yourself in a mirror, for that matter,” Aubrey throws back, finally getting that blush under control.  

“I like looking at myself. I look good.”  

Aubrey rolls her eyes but doesn’t dispute the words and Stacie rewinds the conversation back to the point before they’d gone off on a tangent.  

“One of us will have to move,” she says softly and Aubrey sighs. “Because you have to live with your future wife or else no one will take you seriously and this is a two-bedroom house.”  

“Yeah,” Aubrey says and Stacie smiles sadly.  

“It would be so weird not to live with you,” Stacie whispers.  

“I can’t even imagine it,” Aubrey adds, her voice equally as hushed. “And this is home. It would feel strange to move into a new place and not have you there.”  

“It’s okay, Bree,” Stacie says, her forced optimistic voice belying the truth. “We knew we couldn’t live together forever, no matter how much we’ve been avoiding it.”  

“Yeah,” Aubrey says but it’s so far from the truth because she’d never thought about not living with Stacie, the idea seeming foreign to her and she can’t even begin to imagine her life without her usual daily dose of the woman in it. “Yeah.”  

There is also no rational reason that they still live together, both making more than enough money to afford their own house or even a bigger place than the small townhouse they share but they’ve gotten so used to having the other in their life that it almost feels worse than a break up and Stacie’s chest feels tight at the thought of no longer getting to live with Aubrey.  

“And I’m not going to make you move out of here because I’m the one who needs more space,” Aubrey says, shaking Stacie out of her wallowing sadness.  

“The house is going to be so empty without you. I probably won’t stick around when you leave.”  

Aubrey shoots her a sad smile then but Stacie doesn’t see it, fingers playing with the frayed edge of her shorts.  

“I don’t want to live with a stranger,” Aubrey says and Stacie glances up, cracking a smile at the sight of Aubrey’s masterful pout.  

“You have to live with your wife.”  

“Yes, unless…” Aubrey grows quiet then, bites her lip and Stacie looks away when Aubrey shifts in the bath and leans back against the edge, deep in thought. “… no,” she murmurs, more to herself but Stacie hears her.  

“What?” Stacie asks but Aubrey’s already shaking her head, bun loosening and tendrils falling out of it, framing her face.  

“Nothing.”  

“Unless what, Aubrey?” Stacie presses, growing impatient and she wants to lean forward to push Aubrey into admitting her hidden truth before remembering that the blonde is literally naked in the bath.  

“It’s insane, don’t worry about it.”  

“No, if you have an idea on how we can still live together while you also live with your wife, I want to hear it because w— _oh_.”  

“Oh?” Aubrey asks, voice high-pitched as she tries to gauge Stacie’s sudden realisation, wants to know if it’s the same as hers.  

“You need to live with your wife and we already live together,” Stacie says slowly. 

“It’s a crazy idea,” Aubrey says then even though it’s actually a really great idea but she doesn’t want to rope Stacie into this mess. 

“Except it’s not,” Stacie says, dragging her eyes away from the chip in the tile next to the shower curtain rod, had been staring at it intently to mull things over, to look at Aubrey, nodding slowly. “It makes perfect sense.”  

“We can’t get married,” Aubrey whispers, sounding less and less convinced as she speaks. 

“Can’t we?”  

“I can’t ask you to do that,” Aubrey says, changing course.  

“I’m offering.”  

“I don’t want things to get weird.”  

“Literally nothing would change except that we’ll be legally married,” Stacie argues and Aubrey has to concede that point.  

Stacie grimaces then and she tries to hide it but she’s not quick enough and Aubrey pounces on that immediately. 

“What was that?”  

“Nothing.”  

“Tell me.”  

“The only thing that would change is that I’d have to go to dinner with your dad from now on,” Stacie says, expression showing how much she hates that and it’s the small detail, the tiny nitpick that makes Aubrey laugh loudly, shoulders shaking the longer she looks at Stacie’s face.  

“Half the Bellas already think we’re shacking up…” she says after her laughs subside and Stacie nods, gestures as if to say “see?”  

“Plus it’ll give you better cover. You can tell your dad we’ve been together for however long and that you were just afraid to bring it up with him because he’s… _him_ ,” Stacie says, stumbling over the right way to insult Aubrey’s father without crossing the line.  

“And he won’t be able to say we rushed into it for the sake of getting the company because we already live together and we can say we’ve always been heading in that direction,” Aubrey muses aloud.  

“There you go,” Stacie says. 

“This is insane,” Aubrey mumbles again. 

“What’s insane is you abandoning me to marry a total stranger so you can get your father’s company,” Stacie points out. 

“You would really do this for me?” Aubrey asks, shifting and sitting up, twisting to face Stacie and grabbing the side of the curtain to keep herself decently covered.  

“Put yourself in my shoes Aubrey. Would you?”  

“In a heartbeat,” she answers without a moment’s hesitation and Stacie’s smile is genuine.  

“So you have your answer.”  

“We’re going to get married,” Aubrey says, brows furrowing but a smile tugging at her lips.  

“Well, you’re gonna have to be more convincing than that,” Stacie says, unable to stop herself from poking fun at Aubrey and the woman looks at her, confusion clear.  

“What?”  

“I’m a lady—”  

“Since when?” Aubrey asks with a sharp laugh but Stacie just continues as if Aubrey hadn’t spoken.  

“—so I expect to be proposed to,” Stacie says, lifting her chin proudly.  

“Really?”  

“Yes.”  

“But I don’t have a ring,” Aubrey says and that finally makes Stacie break and look at her, melting at the exaggerated pout on Aubrey’s face that’s completely overshadowed by the playful glint in her stormy green eyes.  

“We can go shopping for one on Saturday,” Stacie challenges, her amusement clear.  

“Stacie?”  

“Yes?”  

“Will you marry me?”  

Stacie looks at Aubrey closely, sees how she’s holding her breath in anticipation, one hand curled over the edge of the bathtub while the other holds their shower curtain in place, her expression so soft and open and Stacie flashes back ten years, back to when Aubrey had begged her to come back to the Bellas during her junior year.  

She’s older now, and a little more immune to Aubrey’s pleading, puppy-dog-eyes-begging face so she smiles, gives the blonde the illusion of assent before saying, “I’ll think about it.”  

She winks when Aubrey’s mouth drops open in surprise, shifts onto her knees to stand up.  

“You bitch,” Aubrey breathes, watching as Stacie struggles to get up from the floor, too distracted by the taunting to even enjoy the gracelessness of Stacie struggling to get up in the small space.  

“That’s no way to speak to your maybe-fiancée,” Stacie tuts disapprovingly but then Aubrey flicks water at her again and she laughs, scooting out of the way. “Soon you won’t have any water left,” Stacie teases, pretends to peer into the bathtub.  

“I’m gonna have to refill it with hot water anyway because it got cold,” Aubrey says with a twist of her lips and a shrug.  

“I’ll leave you to it,” Stacie says, wriggling her fingers in a quick goodbye and she twists the door handle before Aubrey calls out her name, leaning out over the edge to look at her. “Yeah?”  

“Thank you,” Aubrey says with a sincere smile.  

“Anytime.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave me love in the form of comments!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay, life got in the way <3

She’s sitting up in bed, tablet in her lap and sipping from her coffee cup when the bedroom door cracks open, and Aubrey doesn’t even look up from her book before saying, “You’re up early.”  

The only response she gets a soft shuffle of feet and that’s what finally calls her attention as she glances up quickly to look at Stacie.  

Stacie’s closing the door behind her and by the time she turns, Aubrey’s wearing a soft frown, glasses pushed to the top of her head as she watches the woman make her way over to the bed.  

Stacie crawling into bed with her wouldn’t be as concerning as it is if it weren’t for the dried tear tracks on her cheeks and Aubrey’s worry only grows when Stacie doesn’t say anything, just tucks her knees up and clutches the pillow a little too tightly.  

“Stace?” she asks carefully but Stacie just shakes her head and buries her face further into the pillow.  

Aubrey sets her mug on her nightstand so she can switch her tablet to the other hand, her now freed hand smoothing over Stacie’s hair, nails raking softly over her scalp.  

“Sweetie, what’s wrong?”  

Stacie shakes her head, eyes already closed but she seems to melt into Aubrey’s touch so Aubrey keeps moving her fingers through her hair.  

“Stacie…”  

She sighs deeply, twists her head so she’s facing Aubrey and slowly flutters open her eyes, squinting at the morning sun streaming into the room.  

“Weird dream. Miss my dad,” she says and Aubrey’s heart hurts at the small voice.  

“I’m so sorry, baby,” Aubrey whispers and when Stacie shrugs, her heart breaks even more. She leans down and quickly presses her lips to the side of Stacie’s head before sitting up again and resuming the motion of dragging her fingers through Stacie’s hair. “Do you want to talk about it?”  

“Later.”  

“We can stay home today if you want to.”  

“No, I’ll be okay,” Stacie says with a faint smile. “Just not ready to face the day yet.”  

“Sure?”  

“Yeah,” Stacie says, closing her eyes as Aubrey keeps dragging her fingers along Stacie’s scalp soothingly. “I’m looking forward to seeing the girls.”  

“Okay,” Aubrey says.  

Stacie doesn’t fall asleep but she lingers in the soft delirium of being almost awake, helped along by Aubrey’s hand running over her hair, fingers occasionally tangling in the brown locks as Aubrey goes back to her book.  

“What are you reading?” Stacie asks softly a while later.  

“The Night Tiger,” Aubrey says, bookmarks her place and puts away her tablet.  

“New?”  

“Mhm-hm.”  

Stacie remains quiet then, burrows back into the pillow and Aubrey watches her closely.  

She drags her fingers through Stacie’s hair a final time, all the way to the ends, before brushing her hair away to trace the outline of Saturn on Stacie’s shoulder and then its outlined trajectory around the tattooed sun.  

“You need to go in for a touch-up,” Aubrey says after idly tracing the other planets.  

“I know,” Stacie says, twisting to shoot Aubrey a smile. “I’m just a little torn up about Pluto.”  

“Because it’s not officially a planet anymore?” she asks, fingers moving over the outermost trajectory.  

“Mhm,” Stacie murmurs, eyes fluttering closed again as she basks in the calming feeling. “Nostalgia versus accuracy.”  

“Nerd,” Aubrey whispers and Stacie laughs and it makes Aubrey smile, happy that the woman doesn’t seem to be wallowing in sadness anymore.  

“What time is it?”  

“Almost ten.”  

Stacie groans loudly then, twists and flops onto her back, flings her forearm over her face. “I have to shower.”  

“You do.”  

She cracks open an eye at that, peering up at Aubrey.  

“Don’t you?”  

“I already showered,” Aubrey says plainly, picking up her tablet again.  

Stacie reaches for the thick sheets, lifts them away to glance at Aubrey’s body, noting that she’s indeed no longer in her pyjamas.  

“Stacie!” Aubrey whines as she shivers from the rush of cold before pulling the covers back up as Stacie chuckles softly. “You suck.” 

“Sorry ice cube.”  

“Go shower so we can go,” Aubrey orders, tries to kick at her legs but Stacie squirms out of the way and narrowly avoids a sharp nudge to her shin.  

“Five more minutes,” Stacie tries to tease and Aubrey can’t help the smile on her face.  

“We’re going to be late.”  

“No we’re not.”  

“We’re always late.”  

“That’s not always my fault.”  

“Yes it is.”  

“Nope,” Stacie says.  

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing right now,” Aubrey throws back.  

“What’s that?”  

“Stretching time arguing with me so you can laze around.”  

“You caught me,” Stacie says, smiling lopsidedly when Aubrey shoots her a glare. “Hey, we’re telling the girls today, right?”  

“Yeah, I figured we would.” 

“Okay, just checking,” Stacie says before finally squirming and then sitting up with a long, pathetic whine. “And then ring shopping?”  

“And then ring shopping,” Aubrey confirms.  

Stacie hums as she turns away, does it again when Aubrey doesn’t respond and Aubrey rolls her eyes, knows she’s being baited.  

“What?”  

“It’s gonna be so nice to shop for a ring,” Stacie says a little too casually, lifting her hands over her head to stretch her back, groans happily when something cracks.  

“Why,” Aubrey asks drolly.  

“Knowing that a corporate EVP of Posen Group is picking up the bill,” Stacie throws over her shoulder with a mischievous smile.  

“Do I need to set a budget for you?” Aubrey asks, shaking her head with fond exasperation.  

Stacie remains quiet for too long, seriously considers the question and Aubrey lets out a soft laugh.  

“Go shower, Stacie!”  

“Fine! I’m going!” she says, throwing up her hands and standing up from the bed. She twists back, glances around the room with squinty eyes. “Did I come in with my glasses?”  

“Nope,” Aubrey says and Stacie nods, throws her a thumbs up before leaving the room.  

“Also—” Stacie says, poking her head back in.  

“Go!”  

“—I’m a very simple girl,” she continues, ignoring Aubrey’s sigh of annoyance. “I see a blue box and I’m happy.”  

“Someone has expensive taste,” Aubrey says, can’t help herself.  

“You’re saying that to me, Miss Swiss jewelry only?” Stacie taunts. “Also, Tiffany’s is a classic for a reason, Aubrey.”  

“We can talk about this in the car,” she says. “And I’m definitely setting a budget for you.”  

Stacie’s laugh is the only response she gets and Aubrey shakes her head as she puts on her reading glasses again and goes back to her book.  

 

* * *

 

Aubrey pushes open the door to the cafe, holds it open for Stacie to step through and before the hostess can even speak, she’s already spotted their friends sitting at a table tucked into the corner of the cafe. Aubrey gestures to them and Stacie follows her line of sight and Aubrey quickly thanks the hostess as they move further into the place.  

“Hey ladies,” Stacie says with a grin, hugging the two women and Aubrey follows and greets them. “Where’s Leia?”  

The taller woman, with brown curls and a wide smile, rolls her eyes and waves her hand dismissively. “You know her.”  

“We’re late and she’s still not here?” Aubrey asks, settling into her chair.  

“Yes why _are_  you late?” their other friend asks, cradling the menu close to her chest as she levels Stacie with a piercing look, knows who’s to blame for their tardiness.  

“Don’t give me that look,” Stacie says and the woman just intensifies her gaze. “Nina, stop!”  

She squirms in her seat and Aubrey laughs softly, earning her a light glare from Stacie.  

“I am not one of your dance kids. Don’t use that face on me,” Stacie says, trying for an intimidating look but Nina’s is stronger and Stacie ends up wilting in her seat and Aubrey takes pity on her, fingers reaching out to reassuringly press between her shoulder blades.  

“We got caught up,” Aubrey finally says.  

“ _Caught up_ ,” Nina mocks. 

“Caught up doing what? Waxing each other’s legs again?”  

“Nice one, Mandy,” Nina says, offering the woman a high five that she gladly takes.  

“That’s a new one,” Aubrey murmurs with a fond smile.  

“And for the record, I get my legs waxed at Stript,” Stacie adds.  

“Oh, so you two _don’t_ wax each other’s legs?” Mandy asks, leaning forward with interest, head tilted mockingly.  

“You’re just jealous that Andre won’t take off your makeup for you after a long day,” Stacie teases, opening her menu smugly and Mandy laughs as she shifts back against her chair.  

“How is Andre?” Aubrey asks, and just as Mandy opens her mouth to respond, they’re interrupted by a fifth voice.  

“Hi, hi, hi, sorry sorry, I’m sorry I’m late!”  

Stacie has enough time to look up before the tornado of a woman hits, her coat wafting behind her and the scarf around her neck looking a little too tight for Stacie to feel comfortable about.  

“Hi darlings!” she says as she comes to a stop, dropping an array of small bags on the floor by her feet and Stacie’s up in a flash, offering her a hug and subtly tugging her scarf a little looser.  

“Sit down, chill out, Leia,” Stacie says, urging her down into her chair.  

“We just got here,” Aubrey adds, shooting her a quick smile over the table.  

“Okay that’s good!”  

“We were on time,” Nina says, gesturing to herself and Mandy and the other three roll their eyes and Stacie even sticks out her tongue. “Now you’re being just like one of my kids.”  

That elicits giggles from the new joiner, her hand pressed against her chest as she regards the others. “I’ve missed you girls.”  

“We’ve missed you,” Mandy says and the others nod to show their agreement.  

“Okay, I have presents!” Leia says, seemingly shaking herself out of her emotional moment as she bends down for some of the bags next to her chair just as the waiter stops by their table.  

“Hi ladies, my name is Ashton and I’ll be taking care of you today. Can I start you off with a drink?”  

Leia turns to the waiter with a panicked look that Aubrey immediately catches.  

“We’re going to need a few more minutes,” she says quickly and he smiles before leaving again.  

Leia sets the first bag on the table but then Mandy puts up her hand to halt her. “Do we all know at least what we want to drink?”  

“I already know what I want to eat,” Stacie says, closing her menu and dropping it onto the table in front of her and it spurs the rest of them to look over their menus again. One by one they close their menus as they decide and they’re all looking at Aubrey in anticipation, Stacie practically shaking with excitement for Leia’s presents as she waits for Aubrey to finish picking.  

“Okay,” Aubrey says before even looking up, can feel their stares on her as she closes the menu. “I know what I want.”  

“Awes,” Stacie says, taking the menu from her lest Aubrey decide to change her mind before turning to Leia. “Gifts?”  

“We have here…” Leia trails off as she looks into the bag. “Mandy.” She hands over the bag to eager hands before picking up the next one. “Stacie.” Stacie takes the bag with a wide smile, tries to seem polite about it before digging into the bag and making Aubrey laugh softly. “Nina.” Nina takes the bag and practically upends the bag on the table in front of her.  

Leia pauses then and Aubrey finds herself frowning before she even knows what’s happening, expression easing when Stacie’s fingertips graze against her knee.  

When Aubrey makes eye contact with Leia, she can see the teasing glint in her dark eyes and her pout deepens because she knows she’s just being yanked around at this point.  

“And Aubrey,” Leia says with a badly-contained smirk, holding out a green bag.  

Aubrey reaches for it, ready to take it when Leia pulls back her hand and holds it just out of reach.  

“My mom says she’s happy to hear you’re good but that she’d prefer to see if you’re good,” Leia says and Aubrey finally relaxes, realises what the whole shtick is about.  

“I’m going in May,” Aubrey says.  

“Promise?” Leia asks.  

“Promise,” Aubrey says emphatically.  

“Okay,” Leia finally acquiesces, hands over the bag. “I know she didn’t say anything but she was bummed out you had to cancel last year.”  

“I figured. I’m trying to schedule it with a work trip so that nothing can come in the way,” Aubrey explains as she takes the small bag with a grateful smile. “Might take this one with me.”  

“What?” Stacie asks when Aubrey nudges her, looking up from her box of panda cookies in confusion.  

“You, me, Hong Kong in May?”  

“Don’t leave her alone or she’ll come back with a suitcase full of cookies,” Mandy teases and they all laugh.  

“I’m totally in, by the way,” Stacie chimes in.  

“Good,” Leia says with a decisive nod before turning to Aubrey and nodding at the bag in front of her. “I hope you like it.”  

Aubrey peers into the bag, notes the small envelope with familiar handwriting and the bag of tea leaves. She looks up and meets Leia’s gaze, smiles softly before mouthing, “Thank you.”  

The waiter comes by again to take their order and the five friends fall into an easy conversation.  

After their plates have been cleared and they’re relaxing with a round of coffee, Mandy turns to Leia.  

“When do you fly out?”  

“Not until tomorrow afternoon,” Leia says, a content smile on her face as Nina and Stacie both whistle impressively.  

“All that time in the city, whatever will you do?” Mandy says coyly and she lifts her coffee cup to sip from it, winks at the woman.  

“What are you suggesting?”  

“We were thinking about heading out to the Mission later,” Nina suggests, before turning to Aubrey and Stacie. “Wanna join?”  

“We can’t.”  

“We have plans.”  

“So mysterious,” Mandy coos. “Spill.”  

Aubrey and Stacie share a look and Stacie tilts her head to motion to the girls, arches an eyebrow to urge Aubrey to speak.  

“We’re going shopping for an engagement ring.”  

“Ooh, for who?” Leia asks, propping her elbow on the table and perching her chin on her hand.  

“Me,” Stacie says, and Aubrey wants to roll her eyes at Stacie’s bad attempts to stifle her evil grin. “Aubrey asked me to marry her.”  

There’s a beat of silence before the other three women burst into laughter so loud that a few of the nearby patrons — who have already looked over a few times since the girls sat down — glance at the table with a mixture of annoyance and curiosity.  

“No, but really, who are you shopping for?” Nina asks, the first to recover even if her words come out a little melodic on account of her stunted breathing.  

Mandy wipes at her eyes to get rid of her tears as Leia presses her fingers to her mouth as if to physically stop more giggles from erupting.  

“Seriously,” Aubrey says with a curt nod and Leia’s shoulders shake with the effort of holding back a laugh.  

Nina laughs breathlessly, reaching for her napkin but it’s Mandy who calms down then, eyes narrowing as she takes in the way Stacie and Aubrey are very clearly not laughing along with the joke.  

“This isn’t a joke…” she says slowly and Aubrey purses her lips to suppress a smile, shakes her head. 

“Nope. We’re getting married.”  

“What?” Nina asks.  

“Yes!” Leia exclaims, surprising both Stacie and Aubrey but she blatantly ignores them in favour of holding her hand out, palm up and wriggling her fingers in Nina and Mandy’s direction.  

Nina doesn’t bat an eye at that, slides her hand on top of Leia’s to gently push it out of the way as her free hand hooks under her chair to shuffle it closer to the table as if lessening the physical distance between them will somehow give her all the answers.  

“What do you mean you’re getting married?” Nina asks.  

“That we’re getting married,” Stacie says with a shrug.  

“But why?” Mandy says. “You’re not in love.”  

“Tax purposes,” Aubrey says with a small smile that drops when Mandy immediately scoffs.  

“That doesn’t make sense, you’re in the same tax bracket,” Mandy argues.  

“I told you she was gonna say that,” Stacie murmurs under her breath, head turned to Aubrey to shoot her a knowing look and Aubrey rolls her eyes before turning back to Mandy.  

“My dad is being an asshole,” she says with a long sigh.  

Mandy’s mouth twists as she shoots Aubrey a wry smile. “I’m sorry hon.”  

“It is what it is,” Aubrey says and shrugs one shoulder.  

“So it’s for a work thing?” Nina interjects but Leia’s already shaking her head.  

“That doesn’t matter,” she says, voice lilting as she wriggles her fingers in Nina’s grip.  

“Yeah, you could say that,” Stacie answers slowly and she and Aubrey glance between Nina and Leia when Nina turns to the woman with a glare.  

“What’s going on?”  

“Nina and Mandy owe me money,” Leia says in a cheery voice. “So do Mo and Rob, for that matter.”  

“I’m not giving you anything.”  

“A bet’s a bet,” Leia says.  

“No way, this doesn’t count,” Nina says, pointing between Stacie and Aubrey.  

“Of course it counts.”  

“What, exactly, did you bet on?” Aubrey asks sharply.  

“That you two would get married,” Nina says as a quick aside, barely glancing away from her intense staring contest with Leia.  

“And you all said it was a sucker’s bet,” Leia sasses. “I’m about to be two hundred dollars richer for it.”  

“This is bullshit—!”  

“Language!” Stacie scolds and Nina holds up her middle finger without breaking eye contact.  

“—this wasn’t part of the bet. They’re not getting married for love,” Nina finishes.  

“We never bet on why they would get married, Nina, just that they would,” Leia argues and a long sigh from Mandy makes all of them turn to her.  

“She’s right,” Mandy says dejectedly, jutting her chin in Leia’s direction as she reaches for her wallet to fish out some cash.  

“What?!” Nina almost screeches and Aubrey wants to warn her to lower her voice but she doesn’t have to because Nina’s next words come out low. “This is ridiculous.”  

“It’s not, a bet is a bet,” Leia says, poking Nina’s side and the woman throws her a nasty glare as she squirms out of the way.  

“Leia…” Stacie starts and the woman is too busy celebrating just being handed fifty dollars by Mandy to notice Stacie’s false sweet tone.  

“Hm?”  

“Why did you bet on us getting married?”  

“You know we don’t have feelings for each other,” Aubrey says emphatically. “So why—?”  

“Of course you’re not in love,” Leia says offhandedly.  

“You sneak,” Stacie says, catching on before Aubrey does when she notices Leia’s faint smile. “You knew something might come up and that we’d get married for the convenience.”  

Leia doesn’t answer but she doesn’t have to, has never been particularly good at keeping her expression neutral — the cause of many lost chips on poker night — and Stacie’s expression shifts into one of wonder.  

“You absolute bitch,” Nina mutters.  

“That’s cold, man,” Mandy adds, shaking her head slowly.  

“Can I trust that you’ll inform the boys I’m open to cash or credit?” Leia says sweetly and Mandy can’t even be mad at it, snorts softly as she shakes her head. “That goes for you too, Nina.”  

When Nina tries to argue the point again, Stacie turns to Aubrey with a quizzical look. 

“You know, this is not what I expected to happen when we told them,” Stacie says.  

“Really?” Aubrey says, gesturing to their now bickering friends. “This is exactly what I expected would happen.”  

Stacie looks sceptical.  

“Laughing and then spiralling is pretty much on-brand for them,” Aubrey explains and Stacie’s mouth pulls downward before she nods.  

“Yeah, actually,” Stacie admits and they turn back to the three, find Leia smiling happily, Nina glaring into her coffee cup and Mandy watching them. “Resolved?” Stacie asks, eyebrows raised as she glances between them.  

“Of sorts,” Mandy says.  

“No,” Nina says.  

“Yes,” Leia says and Aubrey and Stacie share a laugh at the wildly differing answers.  

“So,” Mandy says, trying to move them past it. “When are you getting married?”  

 

* * *

 

They’re browsing the place, Stacie bent over a glass display case and pointing out some rings to the salesperson and Aubrey breaks away as she keeps walking around, finds herself suddenly standing in front of a display case mounted against the wall, separate from the regular collection and begging to be seen and Aubrey is drawn to the solitary ring on display there.  

She looks over her shoulder, ready to call Stacie over but the woman is deep in conversation with the salesperson so she glances back and steps closer to admire the ring on display.  

“What size are you?”  

“Six,” Aubrey says automatically before her head snaps up and she meets the eye of the manager.  

“What a coincidence,” he says, his smile knowing as he reaches into his pocket for the key to open the display case but before he can even unlock it, Aubrey shakes her head.  

“Oh no, that’s alright,” she says with a polite smile. “We’re not here for me.”  

“That doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying on.”  

Aubrey chuckles softly, shakes her head again even though she can appreciate his sales savvy.  

“No, thank you.”  

She smiles politely at him a final time before moving back to Stacie but then she makes the mistake of looking back for a final glance at the ring and finds him still standing there, waiting to catch her in the act and Aubrey ducks her head to hide the faint pink creeping up her cheeks.  

“Find anything?” Aubrey asks, touching Stacie’s elbow to get her attention.  

“We have a few options,” Stacie says, smiling up at the salesperson and then the manager, who has also joined them.  

“Harper, why don’t you get these ladies settled and I’ll bring the options over,” he says, politely nudging the woman out of the way and she smiles, leads Stacie and Aubrey over to a small alcove with a comfortable couch.  

“Would you like a refill?” Harper asks, gesturing to their champagne flutes and Aubrey turns to Stacie, eyebrows raised.  

“Do you want to drive?” Aubrey asks.  

“I feel like this is maybe a decision I’ll need to make sober,” Stacie says with a cheeky grin.  

“You will have to wear it for the rest of your life,” Harper tries to cut in and they both briefly glance at her before sharing a secretive look.  

“Exactly,” Stacie says, voice a little too high-pitched to be genuine.  

“I’ll take a refill, thank you,” Aubrey says after they break eye contact, turning back to Harper.  

“And for you, Stacie?”  

“Just a coffee would be great.”  

“Okay, I’ll be right back.”  

They smile as the salesperson disappears around the corner.  

“Did you find anything that stands out?” Aubrey asks, leaning back against the plush couch.  

“Yeah there’s a few that are nice,” Stacie says vaguely, gestures with her hand and Aubrey watches her closely, head tilting sideways when Stacie won’t meet her eyes.  

“There’s one you already love.” Stacie shoots her a guilty smile and Aubrey’s lips tick upwards. “What’s the problem?”  

“It’s really expensive,” Stacie murmurs.  

“I was kidding earlier, Stace.”  

“What do you mean?” Stacie asks, scrunching up her face as she tries to run through all the conversations they’ve already had that day.  

“When I said I was giving you a budget. I’m not. You’re doing me a favour and you know money’s not a problem. Go wild.”  

“Are you sure?” Stacie asks warily, eyes narrowed in suspicion as she looks at Aubrey, watching out for any sign of doubt. 

“I’m sure.”  

“Okay…” Stacie says slowly, twisting back so she can lean against the couch next to Aubrey, their shoulders bumping.  

“And Stacie?”  

“Hm?”  

“If I catch you looking at price tags I will tell all of your online gaming friends that you have an Xbox tattoo.”  

Stacie’s mouth drops open and she turns her head to look at Aubrey, finds the woman with a challenging look and raised eyebrows.  

“You wouldn’t,” she breathes.  

“I’ll even send them a picture.”  

“The betrayal,” Stacie says, horrified, but Aubrey just purses her lips to avoid smirking and nods.  

“You know I’ll do it, too,” Aubrey says, her façade cracking the longer Stacie stares at her in shock.  

“I know,” she says and then shakes her head. “You know sometimes you scare me.”  

Aubrey finally breaks, laughs sharply at that.  

“I can’t believe I’m marrying you,” Stacie whispers under her breath.  

Aubrey opens her mouth to retort when Harper comes back with a large glass of water and the bottle of champagne to refill Aubrey’s glass.  

The manager joins them, sets the tray of rings down on the small table in front of them and Stacie glances over them with a smile, easily finding the one she likes but then her brow twitches as she notices the other rings.  

“There are a few here I didn’t pick out,” she comments lightly, trying to show she’s curious more than anything and Harper turns to the manager with a coy smile as he steps forward with a nod and a smile.  

“That’s on me,” he says, voice low yet playful. “I like adding to a tray just for you to try other things, in case you end up falling in love with something radically different than your usual style.”  

Stacie hums and nods, smile widening at the explanation.  

He stares at Aubrey then, smile turning mysterious and Aubrey can’t quite figure out why until she looks down and has to purse her lips to keep from smiling when her eyes fall on the ring she’d been admiring earlier.  

She shakes her head with mirth as Stacie starts trying on rings, easily returning back to her favourite.  

“That’s the one,” Aubrey breathes, staring intently at the ring comfortably sat on Stacie’s ring finger.  

The criss-crossed band is paved with small diamonds and in the middle sits a round-cut diamond. It’s striking and looks gorgeous on Stacie and Aubrey says as much.  

“I really like it,” Stacie whispers to her, but the manager and Harper overhear her and smile.  

“Keep it on for a while, see how it feels to have it on your hand,” Harper suggests. “Will you also be looking for wedding rings?”  

Stacie glances at Aubrey who nods almost imperceptibly.  

“Yes.”  

“Great, are there any styles you think you have a preference for?”  

“And is there any jewelry you’ll be needing to match it to?” the manager asks curiously, tone innocent as he holds eye contact with Aubrey.   

“No,” Aubrey answers plainly, trying to dispel the mischievous energy hanging about him.  

“I’ll just go grab some things and see how you like them,” Harper says and when she departs the manager leaves with her.  

Sure enough, Stacie looks over the tray of rings with a sort of renewed vigour.  

“He was asking whether you had an engagement ring,” Stacie says, quickly glancing at Aubrey before turning back to the rings. 

“I know.”  

“Do you want one?” Stacie asks.  

“We’re here for you.”  

“You’re avoiding the question,” Stacie prods and Aubrey rolls her eyes and lets out a sigh. “Just put one on.”  

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” Aubrey asks.  

“Nope.”  

Aubrey wants to pick a random ring, but her hand almost involuntarily hovers over the one she’d seen before that’s conveniently placed closer to her. She wants to try on a different ring just to get Stacie off her back but she _can’t_  and she finds herself picking up the ring, notices out of the corner of her eye how Stacie’s smile grows wider.  

A thin golden band with an oval, green-tinted topaz stone with three small diamonds on each side, and Stacie marvels at how perfectly the ring fits on Aubrey’s finger and with her as a person. It’s not hard to notice how taken Aubrey is by the ring either, and even though the blonde shakes herself out her dopey smile, Stacie sees it, and the decision is instantly made.  

“Like it?” Stacie teases, doesn’t even try to school her features or hide her giddiness and Aubrey seems startled by it, right hand reaching out to take off the ring and Stacie lets her put it back on the tray.  

“Happy now?” Aubrey throws back.  

“Yup,” Stacie says and when Aubrey narrows her eyes at her, she holds up her left hand, fingers splayed up and wide as she wriggles them, showing off what is undoubtedly going to be her new ring.  

“It really is so beautiful,” Aubrey says, her smile growing soft the longer she looks at Stacie’s hand.  

“Yeah…” Stacie breathes, dropping her hand to her lap and smiling down at the ring. She knows rationally that she should feel some sort of way about this, about wearing an _engagement_  ring but she doesn’t. It just feels like one of their casual shopping days gone out of control.  

“You okay?” Aubrey asks, fingers trailing along the inside of her forearm, down to her wrist and pausing over the tattoo of a penny there.  

“Yeah,” Stacie says, trying for a genuine smile. She turns her arm over and Aubrey keeps moving her hand until it slides over Stacie’s palm and Stacie takes her hand, squeezes it softly. “Just thinking about how not-weird this is.”  

Aubrey chuckles and nods. “I was just thinking the same thing.”  

There’s a beat of silence where they both lean back against the couch and sip from their respective drinks.  

“What’s taking them so long?” Aubrey asks, glancing over to where the two disappeared to, brows furrowing slightly.  

“Maybe they think we’re making out.”  

“I wonder how many couples they’ve had going at it once coming back,” Aubrey comments and Stacie almost chokes on her laugh.  

“They’re probably traumatised. They’d rather give us more time to finish properly and not interrupt,” Stacie says and Aubrey laughs sharply.  

“What’s the signal for ‘you can come back now’?”  

“Probably a loud moan and then silence? Want me to do it?”  

“Stacie!” Aubrey hisses, swats at her middle. “Absolutely not.”  

“What, too much?” Stacie says between giggles.  

“I can’t take you anywhere,” Aubrey sighs in exasperation.  

“Also, we’re women,” Stacie continues, completely ignoring Aubrey’s words. “We don’t even need to take our clothes off to get it done and clean-up is a breeze.”  

“Stacie,” Aubrey warns sharply but Stacie can see the pink creeping up her neck and how hard she’s trying not to laugh.  

“Look, I’m just saying, it’s not like they’d walk in on anything actually indecent.”  

“What if you were on your knees thanking me, though?” Aubrey says and just as quickly as the words have escaped her mouth, she’s clamped her mouth shut, biting down on her lips.  

It’s hard to contain her laughter, especially when Stacie turns to her with a wide smile and manic look.  

“If only the world could see you for the sneaky kinky person you are,” Stacie teases and Aubrey sticks out her tongue.  

Stacie’s hand jerks up and Aubrey immediately pulls her tongue back into her mouth, having learned the hard way that Stacie’s threats are never empty and that she has no shame in actually tugging at Aubrey’s tongue if it makes another appearance, and Stacie smiles smugly at that.  

“Nobody would believe you anyway,” Aubrey finally throws back.  

“So you’re not even going to argue the point.”  

“Why would I?” Aubrey says.  

“You’re admitting I’m right?”  

“I never said that.”  

“Sure sounds like it.”  

“I’m saying you’re not wrong,” Aubrey clarifies.  

“Close enough,” Stacie says with a triumphant smile. She holds up her hand to glance at her ring again, preens slightly, and then Harper and the manager return. “Can I ask you something?”  

“Of course,” the manager answers, his smile warm.  

“Not that we were, but how many couples have you walked in on going at it after picking out a ring?” Stacie asks bluntly and Aubrey drops her face into her hands while Harper looks surprised at the question and the manager amused.  

There’s a moment of silence and Aubrey just shakes her head and rubs at her temples, and Stacie takes advantage of the lack of answer to press further.  

“Have you ever caught anybody actually having sex?”  

“Stacie!”  

“What?” Stacie asks, her voice almost a shriek and Aubrey looks up at the ceiling for strength.  

“Oh my god.”  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave me love in the form of comments!
> 
> (also: [Staubrey Week](http://staubreyweek.tumblr.com) starts next week so join us and come write/draw/create fun stuffs!)


	3. Chapter 3

Stacie’s fidgety from the moment she gets to work, constantly glancing at the clock hanging over her office door and waiting for the inevitable call. She’s twenty minutes into working her way through her inbox when there’s a knock on the doorframe of her open door and she looks up, smiles at the man there.  

“Hey, Zach, good morning,” she says warmly.  

“I come bearing gifts,” Zach says and Stacie narrows her eyes in suspicion.  

He shows her the hand he has behind his back and it’s a steaming mug of coffee and Stacie’s expression breaks into an exasperated look.  

“What’s wrong?” she asks, gesturing him inside.  

“Nothing’s wrong, why would something be wrong?” Zach quickly says but his voice inches higher the more he speaks.  

Stacie happily takes the coffee from him and sips from it as she continues scrolling through her email and Zach perches on the arm of a chair.  

“You know, the chairs are there for you to sit in,” Stacie points out when she glances at him. “That’s what you made me get them for.”  

Zach sighs and slides sideways onto one of the chairs opposite Stacie’s desk, unbuttoning his suit jacket as he goes down and settling in comfortably.  

“Is it a work thing?” Stacie asks with another quick glance at him.  

“No.”  

“Ooh,” she says with interest, finally turning to face him.  

“It worries me that your reaction would have been different if it were a work thing,” Zach notes but Stacie just shrugs, rolls her hand to get him to talk more. “I need a favour.”  

“I’m working, we’re at work,” Stacie says quickly. “But tell me about this favour you need.”  

“I’m cashing in a favour, more like,” Zach corrects and Stacie pauses with the coffee cup halfway to her mouth and quirks an eyebrow. “From last summer when you and Aubrey went to San Diego for your sister’s wedding.”  

“I remember.”  

“Norah and I have an anniversary coming up.”  

Stacie stares at him blankly, waits for more information but Zach just holds her gaze and doesn’t continue.  

“Am I supposed to guess which anniversary it is?” Zach opens his mouth to refute her, an exasperated look on his face but Stacie continues before he can speak. “Is it the first time you kissed? Anniversary of the day you realised you were in love? Oh, no, I know—” She snaps her fingers in mock eureka. “—it’s the day you realised you were having twins!”  

“Married,” Zach says with a long sigh. “It’s our fifth wedding anniversary.”  

Stacie purses her lips to hide a smile and Zach realises she knew all along and was just yanking him around.  

“We want to go away for the weekend but her mom is going to be out of town and we were wondering if you would—”  

“Yes.”  

“Thank you,” Zach says gratefully.  

“I know I’ve already agreed, but is there anything I need to know before I let your two three-year-olds into my house?”  

“We’re up to four books at bedtime,” Zach says with a wry smile that Stacie mirrors. “You don’t have to check with Aubrey first?”  

“Nah,” Stacie says with a shrug but that reminds her that she’s waiting for a phone call from said woman and she finds herself glancing at the clock again. “She loves having the twins over.”  

“That’s great,” Zach says, noticing Stacie’s sudden distracted state. “Norah will be super grateful.”  

“No problem, just text me the deets so I can put it in our calendar,” Stacie says with a smile, turning back to him.  

“Thanks Stace.”  

“No problem.”  

Her gaze flickers to her screen again and he stands up, straightens his shirt and brushes away non-existent lint from his trousers before pointing at her computer.  

“Anything big come in?”  

“Nothing that can’t wait til morning huddle,” Stacie says.  

Zach opens his mouth to say something else but just then Stacie’s phone rings and she practically dives for it. He’s tempted to leave her to it but something about the eagerness intrigues him and years of being friends with Stacie has turned him into an admittedly huge gossip so he hangs around, decision strengthened by the halting hand she holds up.  

She answers the phone on speaker and before she can even say anything, Aubrey’s voice rings loudly and clearly in the office.  

“You sneaky bitch.”  

Stacie doesn’t regret answering the phone on speaker even though she knows Aubrey’s going to kill her, especially when Zach loses it and lets out a loud laugh.  

Aubrey curses softly. “Stacie!”  

“Yes?” she asks innocently.  

“Why am I on speakerphone?”  

“Because Zach’s here.” 

“Can you please take me off speaker?”  

“No need,” Zach says, leaning forward to speak into Stacie’s cellphone. “Morning Aubrey, I was just leaving.”  

“Bye Zach,” Aubrey says and Stacie knows she tries for a cheery tone but she falls far from it, sounds almost miserable as she says the words.  

“Was there anything else?” Stacie asks him.  

Zach shakes his head. “I’m doing round-up and pep in thirty minutes.”  

Stacie gives him a thumbs up before he leaves and then returns her attention to Aubrey.  

“What’s up, babe?”  

“You can’t answer the phone on speaker,” Aubrey whines.  

“You can’t start a conversation calling me a bitch when I did a very nice thing for you,” Stacie berates but there’s no bite to her words and she grabs the phone to appease Aubrey and take it off speaker and hold it up to her ear.  

“You didn’t have to do this,” Aubrey says in a small voice.  

“Yeah, I did.”  

“You really didn’t.”  

“You were eyeing that ring all afternoon. You wanted it.”  

“Still,” Aubrey tries to argue.  

“Just say thank you.”  

“Thank you,” Aubrey finally says. “But still—”  

“Aubrey, I swear to god if you don’t stop fighting me on this I will call Penny and sic her on you.”  

Stacie thinks it’s hilarious how she can hear Aubrey’s mouth snap shut before a low grumble follows. 

“Okay.”  

“It’s a really beautiful ring,” Stacie says, softens her voice to avoid giving the impression that she’s mocking Aubrey. She pushes away from her desk to lean back in her chair before saying, “You have good taste.”  

“Is it just a ring, or is it an engagement ring?”  

“It’s totally an engagement ring,” Stacie says with a laugh that Aubrey echoes.  

“Just checking.”  

“Did you call your lawyer?”  

“Yeah, everything’s all good on my end. You?”  

“Pretty much. We’re all set for tomorrow,” Stacie says. “Are you gonna get home at a reasonable time tonight?”  

“I can try.”  

Stacie shakes her head in exasperation even though she knows Aubrey can’t see her and lets out a low hum.  

“I could be persuaded not to work late,” Aubrey says coyly even though she doesn’t have to because Stacie knows exactly what she’s fishing for.  

Stacie hums again, longer and more drawn out this time and she can feel Aubrey’s anticipation building. “I’m making orecchiette.”  

Aubrey’s soft, victorious “Yes” isn’t technically for Stacie’s ears but it brings a smile to her face nonetheless.  

“Do you have a wine that goes with that?” Stacie teases.  

“I should.”  

“From your fancy fridge I’m not allowed near?”  

“Yes.”  

Stacie whistles to show she’s impressed that Aubrey’s willing to share her expensive wines with her, but the blonde has made her love of Stacie’s Italian dishes abundantly clear so she’s not actually all that surprised by it anymore.  

She’s snapped out of her reverie by the soft chime of an incoming email and when she glances at her screen to look at it, her brow furrows.  

“I gotta go,” she says distractedly, doesn’t feel bad about cutting the conversation short because she knows Aubrey understands.  

“I’ll see you later,” Aubrey says and then there’s the faint sound of someone honking on Aubrey’s end.  

“Please drive safe!” Stacie says. “Dinner is at 7.”  

“I’ll be there.”  

 

* * *

 

“I have a golden vibrator,” Stacie says when they’re sitting at the county clerk’s office.   

“There are so many things wrong with that statement,” Aubrey says, not looking up from her phone.   

“I bought it when one of our first startups went public,” Stacie explains, nudging Aubrey’s arm with her elbow and handing her half a stack of forms.  

“How much did it cost?”  

“Like 400 bucks, plus shipping and handling.”  

“The shipping and handling wasn’t included?” Aubrey asks then, pausing as she holds onto the forms between them and Stacie shakes her head before letting go.  

“No. You’d think with a 400 dollar vibrator they’d send it to you for free but I had to pay five-ninety-nine. What a ripoff.” 

“You still bought it, though,” Aubrey points out, flipping through a long form to see how much they have to fill in.   

“Hell yeah, it’s a golden vibrator.”  

“Why a vibrator? Why _gold?_ ”  

“Because it’s extravagant and unnecessary,” Stacie says, not missing Aubrey’s eye roll. “What a perfect way to spend my first corporate success story.” 

“I thought you always said that having the startups go through your programme successfully was the best kind of success story?”  

“That’s what I’m supposed to say. But personally? Financially?” Stacie shrugs.   

“You’re something else.”  

“Don’t think I haven’t seen your expensive ass watches, Aubrey,” she says and before she can reach over Aubrey to tap her watch, the blonde has moved her arm out of the way, already anticipating the move and almost hitting the person sitting a chair over in her haste to get her wrist out of Stacie’s reach.   

“Sorry,” she says softly to the stranger before turning back to Stacie. “Watches are functional. They serve a purpose. They tell me the time.”  

“Vibrators serve a purpose. They give me orgasms,” Stacie says, as she gives up on pointing out Aubrey’s watch and rummages through her bag for a pen, smiling when she finds two at the bottom.  

“Didn’t think you had any trouble in that department,” Aubrey comments, holding out her palm for one of them.  

“Know that for sure, do you?” Stacie taunts, placing one of the pens in her hand but not letting go quite yet.  

“Our walls aren’t exactly soundproof and you’re loud,” Aubrey explains, closes her fingers around the pen and yanks it out of Stacie’s hand.   

“Ooh,” Stacie coos, leaning in close to Aubrey and squinting her eyes but Aubrey’s focused on the paperwork again. “And you never said something all this time?”  

“It doesn’t bother me,” she says with a shrug.  

“Does it help you get off?” Stacie asks, trailing her index finger down Aubrey’s upper arm.  

“What would you do if I said yes?” Aubrey mutters lowly, twisting her head to shoot Stacie coy look.  

“Be a little louder next time, maybe put on more of a show.”  

“We’re getting married in twenty minutes, there’s not going to be a next time for you.”  

“Or you.”  

“That’s true.”  

“Sounds like I’m gonna need that vibrator now more than ever,” Stacie says and before Aubrey can respond, someone sitting behind them whispers “what the fuck?” under their breath and successfully reminds Aubrey and Stacie that they're in a very public place.  

Aubrey’s cheeks flush pink and she starts focusing on filling in her form but when she glances sideways, she notices Stacie’s is still blank.  

“Do I have to do yours?” she offers, voice teasing until she lifts her head and sees Stacie frowning at her phone. “What’s wrong?”  

“One of our groups is having a meltdown,” Stacie says, fingers moving over her phone at a rapid pace as she types out a message. “Like, their two main guys almost brawled in our lab.”  

Aubrey’s mouth drops open in surprise. “You have to go in.”  

“No, we’re doing this now,” Stacie waves away, still typing on her phone. 

“After,” Aubrey says.  

“No, c’mon, we’re—” Stacie starts to protest, lifting her head but Aubrey’s already shaking hers.  

“I know you want to go in,” Aubrey interrupts. “It’s okay. We can get dinner instead.”  

Stacie pauses, looks between Aubrey’s eyes quickly to gauge how sincere she’s being and that she’s not just saying that to be polite. 

“Seriously.”  

Stacie’s shoulder slump and she shoots Aubrey a grateful look. “You can come with me?” she tries to offer.  

“No thanks,” Aubrey says. “I’m not getting involved in brawls in labs.”  

“Almost. It was an _almost_  brawl.”  

“You don’t know that for sure,” Aubrey says teasingly. “I’ll go back to the safety of my own office.”  

“Where the only fighting is pointed words between you and Wyatt,” Stacie throws back and Aubrey glares at her.  

“And can I say, when I asked you what you do with your dividend earnings, I didn’t mean what sex toys you buy, I meant why do you make me always pick up the check whenever we go out?”  

“It’s your job,” Stacie says simply, finally starting to fill out her form but Aubrey just stares blankly at her, waiting for an explanation.  

“Stacie.”  

“Yes?”  

“What does that even mean?”  

“It means you’re a sucker,” Stacie says, pretending to be focused on her paperwork but the smile on her face is a little too smug for that action to be genuine.  

“What?” Aubrey exclaims.  

“You’re such a smart woman, Aubrey,” Stacie starts and Aubrey narrows her eyes in suspicion. “We’ve been living together for four years and it took two prenups for you to realise I make as much as you do.”  

Aubrey considers the words, realises she’s right. “You’re definitely paying for dinner later.”  

“Totally,” Stacie says in a level tone.  

“You are.”  

“Of course.”  

“You’re not getting out of this.”  

“Absolutely not,” Stacie says, shaking her head and plastering a mockingly serious look on her face as she lifts her head to look at Aubrey.  

“I mean it.”  

“I’m sure you do.”  

Aubrey glares at the side of Stacie’s head until the county clerk comes out and calls out for them.  

“Next!”  

 

* * *

 

She’s mid-text, ready to tell Stacie she’s at the bar when she hears someone call out her name, the voice recognisable and she’s already smiling as she lifts her head.  

“Maxwell!” she says, swivelling her barstool to face him and lean in for a quick kiss on the cheek. “I didn’t know you were in the city!”  

“I’m here with my wife this time and it’s a strictly no-business trip,” he says, leaning in furtively. 

The words draw her attention to the woman standing with Maxwell, noting her rigid jacket and the string of pearls that give off every bit the vibe of corporate wife but when the woman looks at Aubrey, her smile is soft and eyes warm.  

“I don’t think we’ve ever met,” Martha says and Aubrey feels a wave of relief that she hasn’t met the woman and completely forgotten it.  

“Really? In all these years?” Maxwell says, eyes going wide and his wife shakes her head with fond exasperation.  

“Well, Aubrey, this is my wife Martha. Martha, this is Aubrey, Jack’s little girl.”  

Aubrey has to suppress a cringe at the assigned title as she tries not to let her smile falter.  

“Presumptive heir to the throne, I hear,” Martha says as they shake hands.  

“You must be hearing more than me, then,” Aubrey jokes with a coy smile as they share a laugh and Maxwell clears his throat and shuffles on the spot. 

“It’s all Max talks about.”  

“Martha,” he tries to warn but she just shakes her head dismissively and Aubrey is starting to like the woman more and more.  

“Are you here by yourself? You should join us for dinner,” Martha blazes on, completely ignoring her husband.  

“No, I’m actually meeting—oh, there she is,” Aubrey says, spotting Stacie blazing into the restaurant, head high and looking around the space for Aubrey.  

She sits up higher and raises her hand to get the woman’s attention and Stacie smiles when she spots her, rerouting over with a dazzling smile once she notices that there are people standing with Aubrey.  

“Hello,” Stacie says when she reaches them, glancing over at the others before turning to Aubrey with a questioning look.  

Aubrey pulls her closer and turns her to the two standing with them. “Stace, this is Maxwell Hearst and his wife Martha. Maxwell knows my dad well, he’s on the board of directors of PG,” Aubrey explains and Stacie’s smile grows warm and welcoming now that they’ve been identified. “Maxwell, Martha, this is Stacie Conrad—” She seems to realise the title that’s going to need to follow almost the exact same time Stacie does, and they exchange a quick glance and Stacie hadn’t expected them to have to start this big charade so soon but she just smiles and feels Aubrey relax slightly against the hand she has pressed against the small of Aubrey’s back. “—my wife.”  

Maxwell looks completely shocked by the words and Stacie idly wonders if it’s because of the marriage thing or the gay thing but before she has time to really spiral down that rabbit hole, Martha smiles widely at them and offers Stacie a handshake.  

“So nice to meet you, Stacie,” she says.  

“Same here,” Stacie says, quickly glancing at Aubrey and noting the relief there.  

Maxwell seems to snap out of his shock and also offers a hand to Stacie.  

“I didn’t know you were married, Aubrey,” he says lightly with a small, forced chuckle.  

“It hasn’t been that long,” Aubrey lies beautifully and Stacie has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from making a quip. “And we haven’t told many people.”  

Martha watches them warmly, opens her mouth to ask something when a waiter interrupts.  

“Mr. and Mrs. Hearst, your table is ready.”  

Maxwell nods at the waiter and asks him to wait a moment as Martha turns to them.  

“Would you like to join us for dinner?”  

“We wouldn’t want to intrude,” Aubrey says, already looking at Stacie to gauge her interest in dining with people who are basically work acquaintances.  

“Oh, you’re not at all,” Maxwell reassures and Stacie glances away from Aubrey to look at him. “We’d love to get to know you better.”  

Aubrey raises her eyebrows, glances away and back and Stacie gets the hint, tilts her head and arches an eyebrow, and neither of them notices the couple following their non-verbal communication closely.  

Stacie smiles and then Aubrey turns to them, “We’d love to join you.”  

Maxwell claps his hands together in joy, turns to the waiter and asks him to add two more seats to their table.  

“You know, your dad and I served together,” Maxwell says once they’re sat at their table.  

“Max is still mad that Jack didn’t ask him to be Grant’s godfather,” Martha says with a chuckle but when she notices the tense laugh shared by the two younger women, she pivots the conversation, turning her full attention onto Stacie. “So, tell you about yourself Stacie.”  

Surprised by the sudden fixation, Stacie looks down and takes a moment to unfold and place the napkin on her lap. “What is it you’d like to know?”  

“Everything! How did you two meet? Do you also work at Posen Group?”  

“No,” Aubrey and Stacie both scoff at the same time and the almost visceral reaction make Maxwell and Martha look up with interest.  

“What do you do, Stacie?” Maxwell asks.  

“Tell us about yourself,” Martha adds on.  

Stacie glances at Aubrey, amusement clear and she shakes her head with mirth, shrugs one shoulder so Stacie turns back to the couple.  

“I’m originally from San Diego and I went to college in Georgia where I met Aubrey.” 

“Did you two already—?” Martha gestures between them and when Stacie shakes her head, she turns to Aubrey for confirmation.  

“No.” 

“I went to MIT for grad school and we reconnected after that when I did a research project in Hong Kong while she was living there.” 

“You both lived in Hong Kong?” Martha asks, wonderment clear.  

“Aubrey longer than me, but—” 

“Yes,” Aubrey finishes with a smile.  

“What did you do in Hong Kong, Aubrey?” Maxwell asks as an aside.  

“I was still with PG but heading a subsidiary there.”  

“Gaining valuable international experience,” he adds with an impressed whistle and Aubrey laughs softly, nods.  

“My father moved the company to San Francisco and I was called back to the mothership,” Aubrey says wryly.  

“And I’d been talking to an MIT classmate of mine about starting up with an idea we’d had and we decided to just go for it so I moved here too,” Stacie adds.  

“And living together seemed like a logical next step,” Aubrey says, turning to smile at Stacie.  

Stacie senses her gaze and turns, smile widening at the reminder of those tentative conversations between them about living together and the possible strain on their friendship that might cause. Who would have known that four years later they’d be still going strong, reluctant to leave each other and live apart.  

Martha asks her something and it takes Stacie’s attention away from Aubrey and her warm smile as she asks the woman to repeat the question.  

“What was your idea?” she asks and Stacie’s brow twitches. “With your classmate?”  

“Oh, right,” Stacie says, nods, and Aubrey’s smile turns affectionate as she watches Stacie sit up straighter, ready to deliver her well-practised elevator pitch. “Startup accelerators were all the rage and birthed companies like Airbnb and Dropbox but we thought that just giving out funding and advice wasn’t enough so my partner and I wanted to start an accelerator programme focused exclusively on biotech. We have the same structure as other accelerators but in addition to providing seed funding and business mentorship, we also have a fully equipped lab and experts in biotech to help out startups focused on life sciences. The main problem with a lot of biotech startups is that they just don’t have the equipment to successfully test and replicate whatever they’re working on so we provide them with that.”  

“So you’re an incubator space and an accelerator programme all rolled into one?” Maxwell asks and Stacie perks up, nodding vigorously.  

“Exactly.”  

“Where does your funding come from?”  

“We’re partnered with three VC firms who commit to a few projects per round.”  

“That sounds insane,” Maxwell says but it’s more than clear that he’s impressed.  

“That’s what everybody said,” Stacie admits.  

“But now they’re the leading accelerator for biotech,” Aubrey says proudly and Stacie shoots her a bashful smile.  

“Do you have a business card for me?” Martha asks and Stacie turns to her with an awed and surprised look.  

“I didn’t realise this was going to be a business dinner,” Aubrey teases.  

“This is San Francisco, everything’s a networking opportunity,” Maxwell says with a laugh that they all echo as Stacie digs in her wallet for a card. “But maybe let’s get some drinks and order food first.”  

 

* * *

 

“I can’t believe you got out of paying for dinner _again_ ,” Aubrey moans when she slides into the car and puts on her seatbelt.  

Stacie laughs as she does the same before starting the car. “I’ll pay for dinner.”  

“We’ve already had dinner,” Aubrey points out, relaxing back against the soft leather of the seat.  

“You had something you hate,” Stacie says, voice sounding distracted while she drives.  

“I love escargot,” Aubrey says but she knows she sounds weak while saying it and Stacie’s hum of disbelief proves that.  

“You filthy liar.”  

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Aubrey says, lifting her chin in defiance and Stacie glances at her and lets out a laugh.  

“Okay, princess.” 

Aubrey is quiet for a while, staring out the window in silent contemplation, until she speaks up, says, “Can you turn left here?”  

“Why?” Stacie asks innocently as she hits her turning signal and shifts lanes.  

“You know why,” Aubrey murmurs.  

“No?” Stacie lies. “Where am I going?”  

“You know where we’re going!” Aubrey snaps, purses her lips in shame at her outburst 

“We’re getting your favourite food,” Stacie admits and when she turns to Aubrey, the woman reluctantly nods. Stacie laughs loudly, pulls into the drive-thru before turning to Aubrey with a wry smile. “I don’t have any cash on me.”  

“They take card here,” Aubrey says quickly, almost as a triumph to Stacie’s reluctance to pay before realising just what the words give away, and Stacie’s smile turns almost manic as she keeps her eyes on Aubrey.  

“How do you know that?”  

“There’s a car behind us,” Aubrey says.  

“Aubrey.”  

“Stacie.”  

Stacie relents, moves forwards and lowers her window.  

“Hello, and welcome to McDonald's, how can I help you?”  

Stacie leans out of her car even though she knows it’s not necessary and says, “Hi can I get a large fries and a large vanilla milkshake?”  

“Will that be all?”  

“Yup,” Stacie says and Aubrey turns to her with a small frown.  

“You’re not getting anything?” 

“No, my dinner was super delish,” Stacie says, rolling up to the first window and paying for their order.  

“You didn’t want anything from here?” Aubrey asks incredulously and Stacie shakes her head. “You detoured for me?”  

“I felt bad for you watching you eat those snails,” Stacie teases but Aubrey’s already leaning over the centre console and kissing Stacie’s cheek.  

“Thank you, you’re the best.” 

“Yeah, I know,” Stacie says proudly but she can’t help the soft smile that threatens to take over her face when she turns to find Aubrey beaming at her.  

“Thanks for marrying me.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave me comments bc they make me happy and then I'll write more


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes I'm still here and yes this story is still happening. Everybody say thank you Carli for roping me into Camp Nano and working on this stubborn fic. And a special shoutout to the people who helped me get this chapter out, you know who you are and I am very grateful <3

When the door slams, Aubrey doesn’t immediately get up. She listens to the sounds of Stacie hurrying into the house, shucking off her shoes and coat and Aubrey can only imagine how Stacie must be just dropping everything on the floor around her.  

“I’m so sorry I’m late!” she yells.  

“It’s okay!” Aubrey yells back, stopping the microwave the second before it beeps, smiling triumphantly.  

“I got held up after!” Stacie says.  

“I figured,” Aubrey answers while retrieving the tupperware container full of food from the microwave. She grabs a fork from the drawer nearby and closes it with a quick nudge of her hip before making her way into the hallway.  

“Fuck, I’m starving,” Stacie murmurs just when she rounds the corner. “Hey,” Stacie says after she lifts her head and sees Aubrey there. Her eyes hone in on the full container of food and she frowns. “You haven’t eaten yet? You weren’t waiting for me, were you?”  

Aubrey shakes her head, dismisses Stacie’s concern as she takes a bite.  

“Bite?” she says around a mouth full of food, stepping closer and offering a bite to Stacie.  

“Yes, please,” Stacie says, eyes sliding closed and letting out a content moan after Aubrey feeds her a forkful of lasagna.  

“You need to shower,” Aubrey comments, grimacing at the sweaty smell coming off Stacie and she takes a step back, away from the woman to safer, and better smelling, territory.  

“I know, but I’m so hungry. Give me more,” Stacie growls. She moves closer and Aubrey shakes her head, takes another step back and away from her. “Aubrey!”  

“Stacie!” she says back in the same tone. “I already showered!”  

“Fine!” Stacie says but the pout on her face betrays the truth. She moves her stuff to the side of the hallway and when Aubrey’s distracted trying to fork out another bite of food, Stacie steps closer and steals the bite right before it makes it into Aubrey’s mouth before running away with a guilty giggle.  

“Anastasia Conrad!”  

“I’m going to shower!” she throws over her shoulder as she goes up the stairs, words muffled on account of her full mouth.  

Aubrey follows her with an exasperated shake of the head, smiling when she notices that Stacie has barely even closed the bathroom door. She knows she doesn’t need an invite or to knock, so she simply nudges the door open with her elbow and closes it once she’s in the bathroom, steam slowly billowing up and filling the space.  

“How was aerial silks?” she asks over the spray of the shower.  

“Amazing, Nina kicked my ass today,” Stacie replies. She pulls the shower curtain aside enough to poke her head out, mouth open and expectant and Aubrey rolls her eyes but she still complies, feeding her another bite of food.  

“Did she tell you about that new guy she’s seeing?” Aubrey asks before Stacie has a chance to disappear back to the shower.  

Stacie grins and nods, points to the toilet and Aubrey raises her eyebrows to urge Stacie to give her more details as she lowers the toilet seat lid and sits on it, taking another bite of food once she’s settled.  

“How do _you_ know she’s seeing a new guy?” Stacie asks as she starts lathering her body in soap, her voice more inquiring than accusing.  

“Leia texted me to ask what I knew,” Aubrey supplies. “Which is nothing.”  

“Okay, so, Mandy accidentally let it slip so of course I took advantage of our class today to corner Nina and it turns out she literally met this guy out on the street,” Stacie starts.  

“No!” Aubrey takes another bite of food as she shifts to sit more comfortably.  

“Yes!” Stacie continues and Aubrey listens on as Stacie finishes her shower while relaying the gossip to her.  

Aubrey holds out Stacie’s towel when she hears the shower turn off and soon enough a red-faced and clean Stacie pokes her head around the curtain with puppy dog eyes and a pout.  

“Can I have one more bite?”  

“This is all for you,” Aubrey says, gesturing to the half-full container and Stacie lights up, smile bright.  

“You’re the best,” she says with a wink as she takes the towel to start drying off, intermittently taking proffered bites.  

“I have ulterior motives,” Aubrey says and Stacie laughs softly around a mouthful of food. She stands in the shower as she finishes the last of the lasagna and hands it back to Aubrey, who goes downstairs to put it in the sink while Stacie changes into shorts and a soft tee.  

“So are they dating-dating now?” Aubrey inquires when she returns, lets Stacie manoeuvre her towards the toilet and urges her to sit down, back in her previous spot.  

“Well, Nina was super into him until Mo got involved,” Stacie comments, rifling through Aubrey’s bathroom drawer for her tweezers.  

“How did Mo get involved in this?” Aubrey asks and her bewilderment is more than clear but she still sits back and leans her head against the wall behind her.  

Stacie straddles her legs and Aubrey’s hands fall to her thighs to keep her in place.  

“You know, you haven’t asked me what the guy’s name is,” Stacie comments as she tucks Aubrey’s hair behind her ears and smoothes her index fingers along Aubrey’s eyebrows.  

“What’s the guy’s name?”  

“Erik.” Stacie swipes her finger over Aubrey’s left eyebrow again, leaning in close to inspect it. “Close, please.”  

Aubrey does as asked and closes her eyes, brow twitching when Stacie plucks a hair. “Eric with a C or Erik with a K?”  

Stacie pulls away enough to laugh loudly and Aubrey squints open an eye to look at her.  

“What?”  

“Nothing, it’s just, you know it too,” Stacie says, shrugging, leaning in and Aubrey shuts her eye.  

“Of course I know it, I thought everybody did? Eric with a C, nice and friendly, Erik with a K, evil.”  

“Apparently not Nina,” Stacie comments, quickly plucking another two rogue hairs from Aubrey’s left eyebrow.  

“Oh no,” Aubrey says. “He’s an Erik with a K?”  

“Yup,” Stacie comments as she continues working on Aubrey’s eyebrow.  

“And she’s in too deep now to break up with him over being evil, huh?” Aubrey muses aloud and Stacie laughs softly again, nods even though she knows Aubrey can’t see her.  

“Pretty much.”  

“Shame.”  

They continue on in silence, Stacie bowed over Aubrey and shaping her eyebrows quickly and efficiently, Aubrey only occasionally twitching and a few minutes later Stacie sits back on Aubrey’s legs and admires her handiwork, passing her thumb over each eyebrow tenderly and nodding once.  

“All done.”  

Aubrey slowly opens her eyes, those dark green eyes shining brightly as she smiles at Stacie.  

“Thank you,” she murmurs between them, patting Stacie’s thigh softly and the woman smiles back, climbs off Aubrey’s lap and stands, offering her a hand up.  

“Your bedroom or mine?”  

“I’m kicking you out of mine after so…”  

“Mine it is,” Stacie says, returning the tweezers back to their spot and exiting the bathroom, Aubrey following close behind her.  

Stacie has already whipped off her shirt and Aubrey watches with a sharp giggle how she hops onto her bed and plops, face down, onto the mattress. A long groan follows and she shifts until she’s comfortable, face turned sideways and her hands reaching up to gather her hair out of the way.  

Aubrey pulls open Stacie’s underwear drawer and grabs the bottle of sweet almond oil there before moving over to the bed and straddling Stacie’s legs. Dropping the bottle next to Stacie, Aubrey reaches up to quickly tie her hair back and then rubs her hands together to warm them slightly.  

“How was your day today?” she asks softly, shifting the elastic band of Stacie’s shorts lower on her hips and then reaching for the oil, squeezing a generous amount onto Stacie’s back.  

Stacie twitches and squirms slightly until Aubrey puts her hands on her, smoothing out the oil across her back before pressing her palms to the small of Stacie’s back and sliding them upwards.  

Her mouth had been open to answer, but only a moan escapes and her eyes flutter closed at the heavenly feeling of Aubrey kneading at her sore back muscles.  

“Good,” is all Stacie manages to mumble and Aubrey laughs and presses harder and Stacie groans from the back of her throat so Aubrey doesn’t ask her any more questions.  

She’s just settling into a comfortable rhythm when she feels her phone vibrate in her pocket, and a second later her familiar ringtone fills the room. It’s not too loud so it doesn’t drown out Stacie’s whimper of disappointment but Aubrey still shifts off her and turns her back to the woman.  

“Can you get it? My hands are oily,” she says and before she’s even finished her sentence, Stacie has her hand in Aubrey’s back pocket to grab her phone, answering the call on speaker.  

Aubrey wants to let out a whimper of her own when she spots the caller ID but it’s too late, and her father’s voice completely ruins the soft serenity of the mood they’d been in.  

“Aubrey.”  

“Hello dad,” she answers, tries for a cheery tone, settling back in her previous spot and all but forcing Stacie back down to the mattress as she presses her hands to the woman’s back.  

“Do you have dinner plans for tomorrow?” he asks without any greeting or segue and Aubrey’s not even fazed by it.  

“I was going to just have dinner at home with Stacie, why?” she replies, trying for an innocent tone but her hands dig into Stacie’s back and the brunette lets out a muffled squawk that thankfully isn’t loud enough to draw her father’s attention.  

“I’ll be in town and I’d like to have dinner with you.”  

“Our usual spot?”  

“Yes. Same time and place,” he confirms and when Aubrey’s thumbs press a little too hard into Stacie’s spine, Stacie’s hand flings out behind her and grabs hold of Aubrey’s wrist to hold her still, unable to keep quiet if Aubrey’s going to take out her stress on Stacie’s back.  

“Perfect, I’ll see you then.”  

“Oh, and Aubrey?”  

“Yes, dad?”  

“Bring your wife with you.”  

Before she can answer, the dial tone beeps loudly through the quiet of the room and Aubrey remains frozen in her spot, uncharacteristic panic welling up inside of her. She _knows_  telling Maxwell she’s married would have this exact outcome, the man probably calling up her father under the guise of congratulating him on his new daughter-in-law while simultaneously digging for as much information as possible, so she doesn’t understand why she’s feeling all sorts of anxious about it but she is.  

“Well, that didn’t take long at all, huh?” Stacie says, her voice muffled by her pillow and it snaps Aubrey back to reality, blood no longer rushing in her ears.  

She finally registers that she still has her hands on Stacie’s naked back, Stacie’s fingers wrapped around one of her wrists and she has to shake her head to get rid of the lingering panic.  

“Sorry,” she mumbles quickly, twisting her wrist and Stacie takes the hint, lets go and Aubrey shifts off her to lay on her back next to Stacie. “Sorry.”  

“It’s okay,” Stacie shrugs, curling her hands under her head. “It’s a free massage so I can’t really complain about manhandling.”  

The words do the trick and Aubrey laughs abruptly, turning to Stacie with a soft smile.  

“Still,” she says with a wry smile but Stacie waves her off. “I’m also sorry in advance about tomorrow.”  

“We knew this was going to happen eventually,” Stacie says. “I’m only sad I didn’t get to see his face when he first found out you got married. God, can you imagine?”  

“Maxwell calling him up and saying something like ‘hey I didn’t know Aubrey got married, congratulations’,” Aubrey adds with soft giggle that she tries to stop by lifting her hand to cover her mouth.  

“Watching as he tries to figure out how to respond.” Stacie snorts. “Prime comedy right there.”  

“I’m just surprised I haven’t gotten a call yet from—”  

Stacie laughs again when her phone rings and when Aubrey narrows her eyes at her, she just shoots her a look. “You jinxed it, not me.”  

Aubrey rolls her eyes and nudges her head towards the phone so Stacie taps the green circle for her again, putting it on speaker while Aubrey sits up and rubs the lingering massage oil on her legs.  

“Hey Vaughn.”  

“I know I haven’t been the best big brother to you with my whole lifestyle change—”  

“You mean fucking off to Lombok and eschewing all responsibility?” Aubrey interrupts with a small smile but Vaughn just carries on as if she hadn’t cut in.  

“—but I would have at least expected an invite if my favourite sister got married.”  

“I’m your only sister,” Aubrey counters.  

“That we know of,” he throws back and Stacie hums her agreement.  

Aubrey laughs softly, has to concede that point. “God, I hope I’m your only sister.”  

“I’ll drink to that.”  

Resisting the urge to ask him why he’s drinking when it’s morning his time, she goes back to his original reason for calling. “I’m guessing dad called you?”  

“Yeah he demanded to know if I had anything to do with this,” Vaughn gives with a long sigh.  

“What did you say?”  

“That I don’t even know what _this_ is.” He’s silent for a beat, as if implicitly asking Aubrey to elaborate and when she doesn’t, he continues. “Bree, did you actually marry Stacie?”  

“Yes.”  

“And you didn’t invite me?”  

“We got married at city hall. I didn’t even invite Grant,” Aubrey responds with an evil grin and Stacie’s already shaking her head.  

“Oh, that’s mean,” Vaughn says but his voice is just slightly too hurt to be sincere. “Grant also called me.”  

“Really?”  

“Well I don’t have email so…” Vaughn says and Aubrey has to choke back a laugh at that. All of Grant’s big news for the past few years had come through email, including announcements that Aubrey would have figured were slightly more deserving than a cold, impersonal email. “Anyway, congratulations on getting married.”  

“Thank you.”  

“Even if I suspect there’s an ulterior motive there.”  

“There might be.”  

“Something to do with dad’s usual bullshit?”  

“Yeah,” Aubrey says softly and even though they’re a whole ocean apart, Aubrey can tell he doesn’t want to get involved with whatever it is their father’s doing that has made Aubrey get married without telling anybody in their family.  

Still, he’s a good older brother despite all her teasing to the contrary and after a soft hum he says, “Need to talk about it?”  

“No, I’m good, but thank you.”  

“Okay good, and hey?”  

“Yeah?” she asks, voice small and apprehensive, bracing herself for his next inevitable topic, already mentally preparing for having to turn him down but he surprises her.  

“If you ever do get for real married, I’d like an invite.”  

She feels so off-kilter, first from her father’s abrupt phone call and now this, that her initial instinct is to joke, a defence mechanism that isn’t exactly perfect but is a lot better than what her defence mechanism used to be.  

“Like you’d ever leave Indonesia,” she throws out but Vaughn doesn’t laugh.  

“I mean it, Aubrey. I’d never miss that, for anything.”  

The fact he’d attend her wedding knowing full well their father would be there, and knowing exactly how Vaughn feels about the man, Aubrey feels tears prickle behind her eyes as she tries to keep her composure.  

She shakes her head, stubbornly willing them away as she smiles. “I’ll remember that.”  

“Good. Now, I gotta go because wind’s picking up. Say hi to Stacie for me.”  

“Hi back!” Stacie chimes in and it elicits a soft chuckle from Vaughn.  

“Shoulda known you were there all along. Take care of her for me, okay?”  

“Always. Enjoy the surf,” Stacie throws back.  

“Bye Vaughn,” Aubrey adds and with a final goodbye, he ends the phone call.  

“It’s such a shame that the only decent person in your family lives so far away,” Stacie says dejectedly as she shifts to better face Aubrey.  

Aubrey shoots her a quick, wry smile and shrugs. “It’s probably why he’s still so decent.”  

“Yeah cause you’re such an asshole,” she can’t help but tease and Aubrey rolls her eyes but it still brings a sweet smile to her features.  

“That’s all you.”  

Stacie smiles softly at her, shakes her head as she says, “Nah.” Before Aubrey can get any ideas, she leans in close and that kind smile turns teasing again as she adds, “It’s also a little bit Chloe.”  

“You’re the worst,” Aubrey groans, turning away but Stacie’s not worried about her leaving, especially not when all she does is reach for the remote on the bedside table and use it to turn on Stacie’s tv. “Just for that I’m making you watch Fuller House.”  

“Nooo,” Stacie moans. “It’s so shit, can’t we just watch the original?”  

“No.”  

“Boo,” Stacie complains but still doesn’t move as Aubrey clicks through their Netflix for her show.  

“What are you gonna do about it?” Aubrey challenges with a low chuckle, settling in as the intro starts to play.  

“Absolutely nothing.”  

 

* * *

 

“Fuck,” Aubrey mutters under her breath, loudly enough for Stacie to hear her even while she’s shucking off her jacket and handing it off to the coatroom attendant.  

“What?”  

“Wyatt’s here,” Aubrey practically grows, ripping her scarf from her neck and Stacie can’t help herself as she leans out of the little nook where the coatroom is to glance into the restaurant. She instantly spots Aubrey’s father, something about him naturally commanding attention but she doesn’t linger on him, gaze briefly flitting to the redhead on his left before settling on the man on his right. He’s leaning back against his chair but his entire posture is still taut, perfect, as is his suit and his dark hair is perfectly styled and when he smiles at a joke, the light doesn’t quite reach his eyes and his expression seems more smug than amused.  

Stacie hates him on sight.  

“Who’s that next to him?”  

“His wife Lauren,” Aubrey answers without even looking at them, says thank you to the attendant helping them.  

“Why does she look so familiar?”  

“She was on The Bachelor  _and_  Bachelor in Paradise.”  

“Lauren Johnston? And she married _him_?”  

Some of her annoyance with her father for inviting Wyatt dissipates at Stacie’s completely disappointed tone and she has a hard time stifling a laugh that Stacie immediately hones in on.  

“I was rooting for her to find love,” Stacie defends.  

“I’m not laughing at you,” Aubrey says, holds up her hands in a gesture of sincerity. “It’s just kinda cute how invested you were.”  

“What a disa-aca-pointment,” Stacie sighs and then Aubrey really does laugh and distracts her away from sizing up Wyatt and his wife. She takes Aubrey’s hand, squeezes it softly. “You ready?”  

“Are you?”  

Stacie scrunches up her face as she glances at the table again before turning that expression onto Aubrey. “Let’s go.”  

Aubrey shoots her that dazzlingly reassuring smile again, doesn’t let go of Stacie’s hand as she takes the lead. Her smile softens into something more muted for the present company, but her grip on Stacie’s hand is firm and when they stop at the table to take their seats and have to reluctantly let go, Stacie’s hand settles warmly on the small of her back.  

“Wyatt,” she says with an icy smile, grateful for Stacie’s gentle touch. “I didn’t realise you’d be joining us today.”  

“When Aubrey told me about dinner I thought it was going to just be a family affair,” Stacie adds, meeting Aubrey’s eyes and sharing a look with her before reaching to pull out her chair for her.  

“Thanks,” Aubrey says softly, lets her fingers brush down Stacie’s arm when she sits and watches as Stacie then takes her own seat.  

“Well Wyatt is practically family at this point,” Jack says, clapping the man on the shoulder with a loud laugh.  

She doesn’t enjoy having to work with Wyatt any more than he does with her, but her feelings are compounded when her father’s around. Something about his presence causes her competitive nature to flare up and her jealousy isn’t too far behind because Jack is always happy to see Wyatt and is interested in his life in a way that he’s never been with Aubrey and it’s hard not to let that affect her.  

Jack’s brusque dismissal of her might be unconscious on his end but having to bear witness to how much rather he’d have had a son take over after he steps down isn’t easy for Aubrey and hearing her father call Wyatt family hurts just a little bit more with the knowledge that Wyatt definitely knows how much she hates it.  

“Oh, absolutely,” Aubrey says with a tight smile as she keeps her eyes on her father to avoid seeing Wyatt’s smug smile.  

Stacie clears her throat and breaks the loaded silence and Aubrey doesn’t look away from her father but she does tilt her head towards Stacie with a smile that’s a few ticks more genuine than moments before.  

“How rude of me,” Aubrey says with a light laugh. “Stace, that’s Wyatt Clarke and his wife Lauren, you know my dad, of course—”   

“Good to see you again, Jack,” Stacie says coolly and the man just nods; she and Jack have never warmed to each other, and Stacie doesn’t see that changing any time soon.  

“—and that’s his girlfriend Haley,” she introduces quickly. “Everybody, this is Stacie Conrad.”  

“Hi everyone, it’s nice to be able to finally put faces to names,” Stacie says. Her tone is light enough but the way she stares down Wyatt leaves nothing open to interpretation and Aubrey works hard to school her features, knows that on the first day she’d come home ranting about Wyatt Clarke, Stacie had looked him up and memorised his face — “Just in case I run into him and can accidentally spill coffee on him,” she’d said at the time and Aubrey had laughed harder than she’d expected for being in such a foul mood.  

Wyatt must sense that he shouldn’t feel at ease with Stacie because leans back even further in his seat and slings his arm over the back of his wife’s seat, a move that’s supposed to make it seem as if he’s relaxed but has the exact opposite effect.  

“It’s so great to finally meet you!” Haley cuts in with a wide smile, apparently completely oblivious as to the gravid tension of the moment.  

Thankfully a waiter comes by to take their drink orders and as soon as he’s gone, Stacie flips open her menu and pretends to be very focused on her selection despite already knowing what she’s going to order.  

“So, how do you two know each other?” Lauren asks and Aubrey narrows her eyes in confusion.  

She knows Lauren isn’t as dense as she looks and it’s not like Ogilvy would let just anybody manage major brands so Aubrey doesn’t quite understand the angle, at least not until she glances sideways and sees the satisfied glint in Wyatt’s eyes and realises what’s being set up here under the guise of polite small talk.  

Wyatt always talks about how he and Lauren are a power couple, how they’re a team and how compatible they are and how perfect they are for each other and how they’re going to take over the world and Aubrey always has to suppress an eye roll at the absolute hubris of this man.  

Her father seems to really enjoy the arrogant side of Wyatt though, so it’s not like that’s bound to stop any time soon, despite how hypocritical the whole situation is because Aubrey knows that if she were to express the same sentiments, her father would laugh and offer her a condescending word of advice to not overestimate herself.  

Stacie slowly closes her menu and turns to Aubrey with a coy smile.  

“We’re married.”  

Wyatt chokes on his sip of whiskey but he hides it well enough with a cough but Aubrey can still see he’s surprised that they’ve outright admitted it.  

“I suppose congratulations are in order, then,” Jack says and Aubrey can practically feel her father’s eyes boring a hole into the side of her head, questioning, wondering, suspicious.  

“Thank you,” Stacie says sweetly as she pretends not to notice that he hadn’t actually congratulated them.  

“Oh, I love weddings!” Haley exclaims and Stacie has to appreciate the woman’s complete lack of awareness of what’s happening around her and how much that’s helping the conversation along.  

“So do I,” Lauren adds on.  

“I’m surprised we weren’t invited,” Wyatt says with a feigned sad smile that everybody sees right through. “I’d love to hear all about it but I wouldn’t want to bore Jack.”  

Jack doesn’t say anything but his jaw clenches and Aubrey feels like wrapping her hands around Wyatt’s neck and just squeezing until the man goes blue.  

“We didn’t invite anybody,” Stacie says. She can feel the tension on Aubrey’s body despite not touching any part of her so she leans back in her chair and throws her arm over the back of Aubrey’s chair, similar to the way Wyatt had done it. Aubrey immediately melts as she shifts closer to her, something Lauren decidedly _hasn’t_ done. “We just went to city hall.”  

“Really?” Haley asks, expression dropping but Jack lifts his head and stares them down and Stacie’s unsure if he’s frowning slightly or if he’s frowned so much in his life that his brow just naturally settles like that.  

Aubrey feels unsettled by her father’s frown, feeling worsened by how tight his voice is when he speaks.  

“When was this?”  

Whatever teasing Stacie might have levelled at Aubrey in the past for being a bad actress, she does a remarkable job now, eyes flitting off to stare at a distant point as her lips twists while she hums lowly.  

“About…”  

“A little under a year ago?” Stacie provides, looking at Aubrey as if to confirm.  

“More than a year, I thought?” Aubrey counters immediately, turning to face Stacie.  

“No, we got married after Mandy’s birthday party last year and it’s not her birthday yet,” Stacie says.  

“No, it was after her housewarming party which was before her birthday,” Aubrey argues.  

“No way. There were balloons at her party.”  

“Andre loves balloons, and it wasn’t her birthday party.”  

“It was definitely her birthday party,” Stacie presses.  

“Wanna bet?”  

“Sure, because I know I’m right.”  

Aubrey arches an eyebrow pointedly but her eyes are all mirth and Stacie has to work desperately hard not to smile at her, glad that their little planned banter has put her back at ease.  

Wyatt clears his throat a little too obviously and draws their attention back to the group.  

“So about a year ago,” Aubrey says.  

“Give or take,” Stacie adds and Aubrey finally lets that smile loose with just the right touch of exasperation to make it seem genuine.  

“We didn’t want it to be a big thing,” Aubrey says softly as she turns to her father, eyes wide and imploring in the way she’s done since she was a child.  

Stacie lets the arm drop from the back of Aubrey’s chair, hand falling to her hip in a loose embrace that Aubrey happily leans back against.  

“We love each other and we just wanted to be married without having to plan a whole big circus around it.”  

“That’s not me,” Aubrey says with a shy smile and a small shrug.  

“I seem to recall you wanting a big wedding when you were little,” Jack says with an accusatory tone but Aubrey doesn’t falter, had expected him to react with some suspicion especially considering the timing of everything.  

“Whimsical dreams of a child,” Aubrey says with another shrug. “I’d rather have the big love than a big wedding.”  

Stacie’s already looking at her with a loving smile when she twists her head to smile at her, eyes bright and alight with love. Stacie’s smile grows wider at that, fingers tightening on Aubrey’s hip, a reassuring, anchoring gesture that Aubrey’s entirely grateful for.  

It’s not lost on Stacie that Aubrey’s words are also a direct jab to Wyatt, whose wedding had been a spectacle meant more for the cover of Vanity Fair than for a supposed celebration of love.  

“If we do end up doing a formal wedding, you’ll be top of the list, Jack,” Stacie says then, looking away from Aubrey long enough to shoot the man a wink.  

He hums and doesn’t say anything else and even though a part of Aubrey is grateful that he doesn’t have any more questions or objections, a small, traitorous part of her yearns for any kind of impassioned or emotional response, anything that would let her know that he at least cares enough about her to be angry or hurt or disappointed in her secretive actions.  

He doesn’t do any of that, simply raises his glass to his lips and huffs as he realises the tumbler is empty and Aubrey hates herself for how let down she suddenly feels.  

“And all this time you’ve been married, why didn’t you say anything?” Wyatt presses, cutting into her thoughts, that infuriating half smirk ever-present.  

“Because my love life is none of your business, Wyatt,” Aubrey says in what is simultaneously the sweetest and most dismissive tone she can muster and doesn’t even look at him when she speaks because he doesn’t deserve it and she’s far too quickly losing her will to remain polite.  

“Well I suppose that’s that, then,” Jack says with a decisive nod. “Now, where’s my refill?”  

Aubrey takes comfort in Stacie’s solid presence, her perfect smile softening at the sound of Stacie’s almost imperceptible sigh of relief and the waiter, who’d heard Jack’s bellow, dashes back to their table with a full tray of drinks for them.  

Dinner continues in a similar fashion, consisting of attempted lighthearted conversation mostly carried by Haley, and Stacie is oddly grateful for the redhead’s bubbly presence, even going so far as to have a lively conversation with her about skincare that easily pulls Lauren and Aubrey in and leaves the only two men at the table quietly sipping their drinks.  

Aubrey doesn’t say it, but Stacie knows she’s appreciative of how hard Stacie’s trying and how nice it is to for once not be the one excluded when it comes to dinner with Wyatt and her father.  

Aubrey only starts to suspect Stacie isn’t constantly chatting with Haley for the sake of keeping conversation flowing when they’re leaving, the six of them crowded near the entrance and pulling on their coats.  

“I’ll definitely call you,” Stacie says quickly to the redhead, bending down slightly so she can whisper the words but all subtlety flies out the window when Haley throws her arms around Stacie in a warm hug.  

“Please do! It was so nice to finally meet you,” she says with a bright grin and then she lets go of Stacie to hug Aubrey as well, much to the blonde’s surprise. She departs with a quick flit of her fingers towards Wyatt and Lauren after Jack calls out to her, and while Stacie stares after her with a small smile, Aubrey watches Stacie with a quizzical look, lips turned up in a coy smile.   

“You really do make friends wherever you go, huh?” she teases gently, her fingers brushing against Stacie’s back and then that small smile grows as she beams at Stacie.  

“You love it,” she says cheekily, her tone not faltering once despite her gaze flicking over to where Wyatt and Lauren are watching them with interest.  

“I do,” Aubrey confirms, thanking the coatroom attendant when he hands them their coats. She waits for Stacie to pull on her coat before shrugging into hers and once it’s comfortable, Stacie takes the scarf from her hands and loops it around her neck for her, adjusting it just the way she knows Aubrey likes. “All set?” Aubrey asks, shouldering her bag.  

Stacie surprises her by shaking her head and stepping closer, fingers gripping the lapels of Aubrey’s peacoat and pulling her the last of the distance.  

“Not quite,” she whispers and before Aubrey knows what’s happening, Stacie’s dipped her head down and brushes their lips together in a sweet, and entirely unplanned, kiss. It’s just a quick peck and Stacie doesn’t press for more, stepping away with a soft smile. “Now I’m ready.”  

Aubrey clears her throat, head spinning at how quickly Stacie had kissed her, and how easy it had been for her to do so but when she moves back, Aubrey can see Stacie’s gaze flicker to the couple hovering nearby.  

Aubrey quickly glances at them as well, notices how they’re pointedly _not_ looking at them, and her mind clears as she finally understands what’s just happened. She doesn’t step away as she’d originally intended, stays close to Stacie and turns so they’re both facing the same way, her arm easily slung around Stacie’s waist in a loose embrace.  

“Let’s go home?” Aubrey asks softly, face turned up to smile at Stacie. She nods at Aubrey, barely looking away to smile at Lauren and Wyatt and uses her free hand to quickly flit her fingers. “Bye guys.”  

Stacie doesn’t even hear their parting words, a little too distracted by the twinkle in Aubrey’s eyes when she wraps her arm around the woman’s shoulders. “Yeah, let’s go home.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm hoping to start posting for this more regularly again because I really do love this story, so leave me love and it'll probs happen a lot quicker ;)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yea I'm on a roll now
> 
> Shoutout to Maus for like, idk, pushing me down the stairs to get that roll goin.

 

 _Penny Lane_ 👼🏼🍓 _[18:14]: Hey you home yet?_

Stacie’s barely in the door when she checks her phone and smiles down at the text, ignoring all the other notifications and quickly tapping out a reply. She’d planned on dropping to the couch and not moving for at least an hour and a Skype date with her little sister doesn’t have to derail those plans so she fishes her laptop out of her bag and drags herself to the living room. She waits for her laptop to boot up and gets comfortable on the couch, clicking open her Skype and two seconds later the jingle of an incoming video call rings loudly in the room.  

Laying down and settling properly, she pulls the laptop to rest on her stomach and accepts the call. 

“This is a horrible angle for you,” Penny says with a stifled giggle.  

“Hello to you too, Pen,” Stacie says around a laugh and when Penny just keeps laughing, she sighs dramatically and sits up, placing her laptop on the coffee table. “Better?”  

“Much,” she says with a cheeky grin, sticking out her tongue and Stacie mirrors the action. “How are you? Home alone?”  

“Yeah Aubrey’s not home yet,” Stacie says, gesturing vaguely behind her. “But I’m good, busy with work. The ush,” she continues, eager to get her stuff out of the way, still curious about Penny’s morning text asking for a Skype call that afternoon. “What’s up?”  

“I have something to tell you,” Penny says, her playful expression shifting slightly as if she’s trying to reel back her excitement and it makes Stacie smile even though she doesn’t know what it’s for yet.  

“Cool, I have something to tell you too, but you first.”  

“You’re not pregnant, are you?”  

“God no,” Stacie scoffs.  

“Good, because I am.”  

There’s a beat of silence while Stacie processes her sister’s words, gaze fixed on the image of her sister, sitting at her kitchen table back home in San Diego.  

“What?” she asks breathlessly. 

Penny hums and nods, her lips pressed together tightly in the way Stacie knows she does to contain a smile and that’s the sight that finally makes the news settle, her expression turning up as she tilts her head sideways.  

“Really?” she asks, voice soft and Penny nods again. “Penny…”  

She’s not sure what she wants to say, the joy exploding in her chest and the woman finally cracks, her smile almost splitting her face in half and Stacie feels tears prickle at her eyes.  

“Oh, sweetie I’m so happy for you! Congratulations!” Stacie finally manages, her voice a little tight as she tries to hold back her tears.  

“Thank you,” Penny replies and when she leans in slightly, Stacie can see her eyes shining with her own tears. “We got the results back in today.”  

“This morning? When you texted?” Stacie asks and Penny nods. “And you waited all day to tell me?” she asks but her indignation is more for show because she can’t stop smiling.  

“I wanted to tell you in person!” Penny says, sniffing as she wipes at her eyes.  

“I’d have video called you this morning,” Stacie teases but she quickly lets it go. “Where’s Davey? Can I congratulate him yet or does he not know?”  

“He’s working swing shifts this week but you can text him! He went with me to the doctor.”  

“Oh you’re gonna be such a good mom, Pen,” Stacie says softly.  

“Yeah?” Her small and slightly worried tone finally makes Stacie cry as she leans in closer to her screen.  

“For sure. The bestest.”  

“That’s not a word,” Penny chokes out between her tears, wiping at her cheeks with a sharp chuckle.  

“You’re doing great already,” Stacie teases. “Have you told mom?”  

“We’re having lunch with her and Gerry and nonna tomorrow.”  

It’s in moments like these that Stacie regrets not living closer to her family; she’d have loved to see their mom and grandma’s reaction to the news. Nonna had been chattering about great-grandchildren ever since Penny married Davey for the second time — the first time being when they were both five and in kindergarten — and missing out on this step makes Stacie miss them all so much.  

The happiness of Penny’s announcement also comes with a sharp ache when she considers the person who isn’t around to hear the news of an upcoming new generation and then Stacie really has to bite back her tears.  

Still, Penny’s having a baby and she’s going to be an aunt, and— “I’m going to spoil your kid so much, I hope you know that.”  

“I expect nothing less,” Penny says through a watery smile and they both try to return to some semblance of composure, wiping at their wet cheeks and Penny shakes her head softly as if to clear her mind, eyes focused on Stacie again.  

“You said you had news?”  

The hesitance she suddenly feels is surprising to Stacie, who’d had a simple explanation ready to go but something about Penny entering a new phase in her life makes her realise that despite taking a step forward by conventional standards, she’s still very much stuck in the same spot she’s been for a while. 

Telling Penny about her marriage  (and its terms) suddenly makes her feel like such a fraud and she’s not quite sure what to do with that feeling.  

“Aubrey and I got married.”  

This time it’s Penny’s turn to be quiet for a long while, the skin between her eyebrows creasing and lips pressing into a thin line.  

“What?”  

Stacie knows that the response isn’t so much one of disbelief but one that begs her to explain, so she does.  

“There’s some stuff with her company and we thought it might be easier, also for tax purposes and our living situation, if we got married. It’s not a big thing, we just went to city hall and we’re not like, dating or in love or anything.”  

“So it’s a convenience thing?” Penny finally says.  

“Yeah.”  

“What happens after?”  

“What do you mean?”  

“Once you’ve both gotten what you need, are you gonna get divorced?”  

The slowly spoken question gives her pause.  

She hadn’t thought of that. She hadn’t considered what would happen to her relationship with Aubrey once the need for the marriage went away. They’d drawn up prenups, and it’s not the technical aspect of it that she finds daunting, but she can’t imagine how they’re supposed to go back to what they were before.  

“I guess?” Stacie says once she notices Penny’s eyebrows shoot up the longer she goes without responding. “I don’t know, that’s something we’ll think about when the time comes.”  

“So you’re not gonna stay married to her forever?”  

“I don’t know.” She feels defensive suddenly, despite having prepared for this exact reaction from her sister.  

“You have to tell mom,” Penny says suddenly.  

“Of course I’m gonna tell mom,” Stacie answers.  

“Because I’m not telling her.”  

“I get the distinct impression that you’re not a fan.”  

“I’m not,” Penny says sharply then, in a tone Stacie’s never heard used on her. “This is crazy.”  

“It’s not crazy.”  

“You married your best friend for a reason that isn’t ‘because you’re in love’. Of course it’s crazy.”  

“Not everybody gets a great big love like you, Penny. We’re not all as lucky as you were in finding David.” 

“That’s not what I’m saying at all.” Penny is growing frustrated and this is definitely not how Stacie saw this conversation going. “I just think you’re creating a bigger mess to clean up later.”  

“What mess?” she exclaims.  

“You married Aubrey and you’re not in love with her!” Penny exclaims. “So how’s that gonna work out when you meet someone else and you fall in love with them and you’re married to your best friend?”  

Stacie stays quiet.  

“You have to admit that this is insane and a total copout, Stace.”  

“Why is it a copout?” she asks, the sudden turn in Penny’s argument taking her by surprise and she’s completely lost the reigns on this conversation but at this point they’re too far into it to turn back.  

“You now have a convenient excuse to prevent any future heartbreak because you’re too chickenshit to let yourself fall in love again or even just be emotionally vulnerable with anybody.”  

Penny’s words fall like bricks between them and she’s never felt more far away from her sister as in that exact moment.  

“Wow,” is all Stacie manages as she slowly processes the full weight of her sister’s disapproval.  

“Yeah,” Penny says strongly, defiantly.  

“Okay,” Stacie says softly and she has to blink a few times to clear the unexpected tears pooling in her eyes.  

Penny’s a good person though so when she notices how deep her words have cut, her bold stance softens, hard eyes turning apologetic as she tries to seek out Stacie’s avoidant ones through the screen.  

“I’m sorry, that was way harsh.”  

“No, it’s—” She clears her throat. “I’m glad to know your honest thoughts on this.” 

She doesn’t realise she’s clenching her jaw, only notices it when a stubborn tear drops from her eye and she angrily wipes it away.  

“Stace…”  

“Seriously, don’t worry about it.”  

“I didn’t mean to make you cry.”  

“I’m not,” Stacie says and hates that she has to sniff to clear her airways, especially considering Penny keeps apologising for the way she’d said the words but not the actual sentiment behind them. “I’m fine. Let’s move on.”  

“It’s not that I don’t love Aubrey, you know that, right?”  

“Pen.”  

“Because I do. I adore her. She’s so great, she’s like the sister I never had,” she blazes on, gesturing wildly and it distracts Stacie enough to take a few seconds for her choice of words to sink in and Penny’s at least two sentences further when Stacie cuts in with a frown.  

“Wait what do you mean like the sister you never had? What am I?”  

Penny’s mouth snaps shut mid-sentence, hands stilling as she tries to come up with a response.  

“Way to kick a dog when she’s already down.”  

“I thought you weren’t down?” she throws back with a raised eyebrow that has Stacie rolling her eyes in response. “She’s just different. Together, the two of you are like a full-package, perfect older sister.”  

“You’re not doing as well as you think you are,” Stacie says but even as she tries for a stern tone, she chuckles.  

Penny smiles then, in that adorable charming way that had made Stacie bend her way since they were little, and she hates that it still works so well.  

Stacie rolls her eyes, looking away with an exasperated shake of the head.  

Penny’s face takes on that serious expression again, her lips parting as she takes a deep breath, words on the tip of her tongue.  

Stacie’s eyes flick away from the sight when she hears Aubrey’s key in the door and Penny must hear Aubrey coming in as well because she snaps her mouth shut and Stacie doesn’t get to hear whatever had made Penny turn so serious again.  

“Hi!” Aubrey calls out from the entryway, the sound of shoes being kicked off and a jacket being shed loud enough for Stacie to track her movements.  

“Hey,” she replies, leaning back against the couch to glance at the doorway where Aubrey emerges moments later.  

“Hi!” Penny says from the screen and Aubrey’s tired smile brightens as she turns to Stacie’s laptop.  

“Hi Penny,” she says, surprise clear but tone no less excited. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’m gonna go change so I’ll be upstairs if you need me.”  

“No!” Penny interjects before she can go and Aubrey stops, turns to Stacie with questions in her eyes. “I have news.”  

Stacie jerks her head, motions Aubrey closer with a pat on the couch cushion and Aubrey eagerly sits down next to her and focuses her attention on Stacie’s younger sister.  

While the two chatter, Aubrey’s happy exclamations heart-warming, Stacie sits back and mulls over Penny’s words, the ones spoken and the ones she hadn’t and despite all fight to the contrary, they settle and she can feel them start to fester.  

 

* * *

 

Stacie’s been feeling off-kilter ever since talking to her sister and she’s been looking forward to Mandy’s birthday get-together all week, expecting that seeing her friends and celebrating in good company would surely snap her out of her funk but when she’s standing on their doorstep, it’s as if the bad feeling low in her gut grows even more. She can’t turn back anymore because they’ve already rung the bell and Aubrey, who’s been looking at her with worry in her eyes for days now, must notice that something’s really not right because her hand slips into Stacie’s and squeezes softly.  

The concerned look she finds in Aubrey’s eyes when she glances at the blonde is expected, as is the “You okay?” that follows.  

She plasters on a smile and nods, and Aubrey sees right through her but just that moment the door swings open and Aubrey doesn’t have another chance to question her.  

“Well if it isn’t our favourite married couple,” the large man says with a grin so wide it can’t be fake.  

“Y’all are the worst,” Aubrey says with a quick eye roll but she steps closer anyway to hug him.  

Stacie lets herself get caught in his welcoming arms, taking comfort in his amazing hugging skills. “Hi Mr. Mandy,” she murmurs into his muscled shoulder.  

“Hi Mrs. Aubrey,” he returns but when they pull apart he’s wearing a frown. “That doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.”  

His infectious mood does the trick and Stacie finds herself smiling, patting his cheek softly. “Guess you’ll just have to settle for the old nickname.”  

“You like the nickname too much,” he throws back, steps aside to let them into the house and with a quick smile and a wink, Aubrey disappears further inside to start saying hi to everybody.  

“I don’t mind it,” Stacie says with a shrug.  

“That’s the problem,” he teases and Stacie laughs softly. “Anyway, I have a brand new bottle of Aperol with your name on it.”  

“You got any sparkling wine?” she asks, tilts her head as if suspicious.  

“Of course,” he scoffs and the quirk of her mouth turns into a smile again.  

“Andre, you’re a man after my heart,” she sighs, looping her arm into his and letting him escort her into the party.  

The hugs and cheerful greetings from her friends effectively work to soothe her mood, and a few hours later, full of delicious food and a couple of drinks, she’s ready to banish the last of her bad thoughts when she steps out of the bathroom and into the hallway. She turns at the sound of the front door opening, curious as to the latecomers.  

Andre’s standing in the doorway talking to a newly arrived couple and while he manages to block out most of the view, the jet black hair of the woman is unmistakable and one that Stacie could spot anywhere. Before Andre moves and exposes her, she darts back towards the living room and doesn’t join in any conversations, just subtly makes her way through the room and slips into the safety of the empty kitchen and she only realises she’d been holding her breath when her chest burns and she finally exhales sharply, that familiar troubled feeling returning with a vengeance.  

Nina pushes into the kitchen a while later, pausing just inside the swinging doors with her eyes closed to take a deep breath and the churning in Stacie’s gut doesn’t dissipate, but she still manages a curious smile.  

“Hey,” she says softly and Nina’s eyes snap open.  

She’s clearly surprised to find Stacie there and her familiar mask falls back into place, a half-smile quirking over her face.  

“Hey, what’re you doing in here?”  

Stacie gestures to the platter of cream puffs she’s got in front of her and Nina’s squared shoulders sag as she blows out a laugh.  

“Want one?”  

“I’m pretty sure they’re for the party,” Nina says but she moves closer, takes the empty barstool at the corner of the counter where Stacie’s sitting.  

Stacie just shrugs, not feeling up to a quip and Nina doesn’t question why she’s hiding out by herself in the kitchen so Stacie doesn’t ask why she’s seeking refuge either.  

They sit in silence for a while, slowly making their way through the cream puffs and Stacie’s grateful for the quiet and for her unbroken reprieve.  

“Want to talk about it?” Nina says a good while later.  

Stacie has a cream puff halfway to her mouth and she pauses, stares at the delicious treat in contemplation before popping it into her mouth and then looking at Nina. She shakes her head and the woman shoots her a wry smile.  

“You?” she asks once she’s swallowed the cream puff.  

“Not really,” Nina says, sipping from her glass of wine.  

They nod at each other, about to settle back in the silence when the kitchen door swings open and Mandy quickly glances at Stacie then Nina, settling on the half-empty tray of cream puffs before leaning back out again.  

“Aubs, she’s in here.”  

Stacie sighs deeply and shoves a final cream puff into her mouth, taking advantage of the brief moment they wait before Aubrey joins them in the kitchen, her eyes concerned and settling on Stacie.  

“Hey, I’ve been looking for you,” she says softly, and her tone isn’t accusatory but it still rubs Stacie the wrong way.  

“We’ve been hanging out with the cream puffs,” Nina says while theatrically gesturing to the tray.  

Mandy rolls her eyes and a chiding comment seems on the tip of her tongue but she swallows it down for the time being, stepping between them and popping a cream puff into her mouth.  

“I was just talking to Harry and he’s dating—”  

“Were you talking to Harry or was he talking at you?” Mandy cuts in with a laugh and it draws chuckles from all of them.  

“Whenever he talks I just hear elevator music playing in my brain,” Nina tacks on.  

Aubrey doesn’t laugh at that, her eyes firmly on Stacie as her forehead crinkles.  

Stacie doesn’t try to hide anything, sighs softly as Mandy and Nina keep talking, ignoring them as she watches Aubrey tilt her head sideways, that worried gaze raking down her body to fully take her in.  

“I know Elena’s here,” Stacie finally says.  

“You know Harry’s new girlfriend?” Mandy says, her conversation with Nina coming to an abrupt halt as she turns to the brunette. “She just moved to town, how do you know her?”  

Stacie falls silent, almost expecting Aubrey to answer for her but the blonde stays stubbornly quiet, arches an eyebrow and her headshake is so minute, Stacie would have missed it if she weren’t staring Aubrey down.  

She breaks first, lets out a long sigh as her shoulder slump forward and she grabs her glass, taking a long swig from it before turning to the curious pairs of eyes watching her.  

“Remember I told you about this girl I dated when I was at MIT?” 

“The one who dated you for like a year and then decided she wasn’t gay anymore?”  

“The one who broke your heart and made you run away to Hong Kong?”  

“Yeah, that one,” Stacie says softly but Nina and Mandy still just stare at her blankly. She groans and drags a hand down her cheek.  

“The girl is Elena,” Aubrey finally helps and Stacie shoots her a grateful look.  

“The Elena that Harry is dating?” Mandy asks, her tone more laced with disbelief at the coincidence of the situation than that she thinks they’re lying or making it up.  

When both Aubrey and Stacie nod, Mandy grimaces.  

“Shit,” Nina says, raising her eyebrows as she reaches for her drink. “No wonder you didn’t wanna talk.”  

“You know you can’t hide out here all night,” Aubrey says gently and it puts Stacie on the defensive again despite not knowing quite why considering Aubrey’s not necessarily wrong.  

“When’s the last time you talked to her?”  

Stacie shrugs even though she vividly remembers the last time she spoke to Elena, right down to the what they were both wearing and what the weather was like.  

“Then you should go out there and talk to her,” Nina says with a decisive nod and it snaps her out of the memory, an unexpected feeling of shock and betrayal engulfing her and she can’t help but frown at Nina, looking for any outlet.  

“And introduce us to her,” Mandy says, completely missing the way Stacie’s glaring at Nina.  

Aubrey opens her mouth to say something, presumably to remind Mandy that she’s already met Elena, having said hi to all the guests Andre has welcomed into their home, but Stacie’s growing irritation finally breaks.   

“Could you maybe tone down the excitement at meeting the girl who literally broke my heart?” she snaps and the words lack her usual undercurrent of exasperation and it gives away how upset she actually is, Mandy and Nina’s smiles immediately falling away.  

Stacie doesn’t miss the way they both glance at Aubrey or how Aubrey tilts her head to the door and without another word, the two exit through the swinging door.  

She doesn’t say anything, and neither does Aubrey. 

Aubrey silently moves closer and Stacie tenses up when she thinks Aubrey’s going to reach for her but the woman stops just shy of her, grabs a cream puff and pops it into her mouth before moving away again.  

“Do you want to talk about it?” Aubrey asks after a while, her voice low and almost a whisper, completely non-confrontational but Stacie has been waiting for something, and the anticipation sets her off again.  

“No,” she returns sharply. “Why does everybody keep asking me that?”  

“Because you’re not okay,” Aubrey returns without missing a beat.  

“I’m fine,” Stacie presses.  

“Okay,” Aubrey says in a higher pitch that gives away how little she believes Stacie in that moment.  

Stacie doesn’t want to dwell on it and she knows she should apologise to both Aubrey and her friends for her earlier outburst but she’s not feeling quite repentant enough and Aubrey’s quiet presence, usually calming and soothing, has the opposite effect right then as the ghosts of her relationship past and her sister’s words from the week before mingle together in an unexpected and truly unforgiving cocktail of self-loathing.  

“Do you want to go home?” Aubrey asks.  

“I’ll be here when you’re ready to go.”  

“Let’s go home, then,” Aubrey says and her face is a perfectly blank mask and Stacie feels infinitely worse but that doesn’t stop the destructive part of her from lashing out.  

“I’m sorry my bad mood ruined your fun night,” she throws out and Aubrey finally reacts, her perfect public composure faltering as she frowns and blinks quickly in surprise.  

“Did I do something?” Aubrey’s words don’t bite , her voice shaky and when she crosses her arms, Stacie knows it’s more a protective gesture than anything. 

“No,” she sighs, finally slumping against the counter, grateful for the barstool there and sliding onto it, elbow on the countertop and propping her suddenly heavy head up with her hand. “No, you didn’t. I’m sorry.”  

“What’s been going on with you this week?” Aubrey asks softly and Stacie can feel her shoulders lose some of their tension when Aubrey rubs her hand along Stacie’s spine.  

“I’m just… I don’t know,” she starts. “Penny brought up some stuff and now Elena’s here and…”  

Aubrey doesn’t say anything, just gently urges Stacie away from the countertop and Stacie lets herself be drawn into a hug, her face dropping into the crook of Aubrey’s neck as the woman wraps her arms around Stacie’s shoulders to keep her close.  

Aubrey just holds her, hand occasionally rubbing her back soothingly.  

“I’m sorry.”  

“It’s not your fault,” Stacie murmurs against skin. The longer they stay that way, the more tension seeps out of her and the electric crackle of her whirling emotions calms down to a low buzz.  

“Still.”  

“I’m sorry for snapping at you.”  

Aubrey shrugs, the move jostling her slightly but it’s effective enough in its dismissive nature.  

She’s about to say more when the door to the kitchen swings open and a set of footsteps stops just inside the doorway.  

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise there was anybody in here,” the voice says, lilting tone too familiar and Stacie suppresses the urge to groan at her misfortune. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”  

“Will the universe ever give me a fucking break?” Stacie murmurs so softly that only Aubrey hears her.  

Aubrey’s hold on her tightens as she twists her head with a sweet smile. “Don’t worry about it. We were just about done.”  

Her voice carries a teasing, almost coy edge to it and Stacie instantly realises what she’s doing.  

Stacie’s hands fall to Aubrey’s hips to gently push her away, lifting her head and licking her lips when she knows she’s in view of the newcomer, but she keeps her eyes firmly on Aubrey, easily feigning a lustful look.  

“Oh, Stacie, hi,” the woman manages, her eyes going wider and when Stacie looks at her, she’s surprised that she doesn’t drown in the dark pools of brown staring back at her, the way she used to, the way she really thought she would.  

“Elena,” Stacie says, quickly clearing her throat. “Have you met Aubrey?”  

“I have. We—”  

“Harry introduced us,” Aubrey says before the brunette can finish speaking. “I didn’t know you two knew each other?”  

“We used to date,” Elena provides and Stacie can’t see Aubrey’s face but she knows exactly the expression she’s wearing.  

“Oh, you’re _that_  Elena.”  

Aubrey shifts to fully face the woman, standing between Elena and Stacie, almost as if to shield her and Stacie has a hard time keeping a smile off her face at Aubrey’s protective nature.  

Elena’s heels click against the tiled floor when she shuffles uncomfortably from foot to foot, even as she keeps her eyes firmly on Aubrey and Stacie.  

“How are you two… involved?” she finally asks and Aubrey’s icy stare melts away just enough for a grin.  

“We’re married,” Aubrey says simply and with a quick tug at her belt loop, Stacie urges Aubrey closer to her, widening her legs enough for Aubrey to comfortably stand between them and the barstool Stacie’s sitting on leaves her just enough height to perch her chin on Aubrey’s shoulder.  

Elena looks surprised and she’s not going a good job in covering it up, eyes flickering between Stacie and Aubrey, taking in every small detail.  

“Congrats,” she says with a forced smile.  

“Thanks,” Stacie replies sweetly and she’s not sure when she wrapped her arm around Aubrey’s middle but Aubrey’s hand slides along her arm to cover her hand.  

She tangles their fingers and Aubrey squeezes her hand reassuringly and Elena’s eyes are drawn to the movement, lingering on the glint of their engagement and wedding rings so close together.  

Her absolute shock is oddly cathartic to Stacie and she’s reminded of Aubrey’s earlier offer so she squeezes Aubrey’s hand again to get her attention.  

“Were we gonna go home soon, or…?”  

Aubrey finally smiles, twists her head to look at Stacie with that glint in her eye as she nods.  

“Yes.” She turns back to Elena, offering her a genuine smile this time. “It was nice to meet you.”  

“Same here,” the woman says not unkindly, still awkwardly standing in the doorway as Aubrey steps away enough for Stacie to slide off the barstool and take her hand. “Stace, it was good to see you again.”  

“Yeah, it was,” Stacie says. “I heard you just moved here?”  

“Yeah, a couple months ago.”  

“Welcome to the city,” Stacie says with a small smile. Aubrey’s tugging at her hand, doing a spectacular job at seeming eager to leave so Stacie follows her and Elena moves out of the way when she realises there’s only one way into and out of the kitchen. “You should have a cream puff, they’re delicious,” Stacie points out just before they duck out.  

It’s much more crowded in the living room than the kitchen, but somehow Stacie feels a measure safer and more relaxed out here and Aubrey squeezes her hand again, taking her attention away from spiralling down into that thought.  

“You okay?”  

Aubrey’s practically pressing her into the wall and despite being shorter it feels like she’s crowding Stacie in a not entirely unwelcome way and when Stacie looks at her, those concerned green eyes staring back at her, for a very brief moment everything blissfully falls away.  

“Yeah, I’m good.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave me all the love you can spare <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ohhhh stuff's heatin up _real_ soon

Aubrey’s so engrossed in reading a report that she doesn’t hear her cellphone buzzing, only snapping out of her concentration when the phone on her desk rings. 

“Chloe’s on the phone for you,” her assistant says and Aubrey doesn’t register much besides Chloe’s name so she hums and tells Rachel to put her through. 

“Hey Chlo,” she says distractedly, trying to do some quick math off the top of her head to see if the numbers she’s looking at make any sort of sense. 

“Avoiding my calls now, are you?” 

“We’re literally on the phone right now,” Aubrey says with a brief chuckle, her focus on the report causing her to completely miss the upset tone of Chloe’s words or the huff that follows her response. 

“I’m not mad at you but I am disappointed,” Chloe says and the two words that stick out finally ping something in Aubrey’s brain and cause her to look away from her screen with a frown even though Chloe can’t see her. 

“Wait, what?” She blinks a few times, trying to clear the lingering floating numbers in her vision as she finally picks up the receiver and takes the phone off speaker. “What are you talking about?” 

“I can’t say I’m super surprised that you secretly got married but I’d have at least expected a memo or something after the fact,” Chloe says and Aubrey’s eyes slide closed with comprehension. 

 _Oh._ “How did you find out?” 

She knows it’s the wrong thing to ask the moment the words leave her lips but there’s no backtracking now, especially as Chloe splutters out the beginning of at least five different sentences before settling on, “Not from you!” 

“I’m sorry!” Aubrey says immediately.

“Start explaining yourself, missy!” 

“We just—okay, it’s not a big deal,” she starts as a sort of blanket statement but Chloe’s immediate hum shows her just how little she believes Aubrey. “Really.” 

“You’re married. Mar-ried.” 

“It really isn’t a big deal. We got married for tax purposes,” she says, and it’s a small bend of the truth but Aubrey figures that not giving Chloe the whole reason will make it easier down the line. 

“If it’s not a big deal then why didn’t you tell me?” Chloe asks, voice crisp and clear and lacking the hint of emotion that Aubrey had expected yet it still gives her pause, unsure of how to answer without offending or hurting Chloe. 

“I didn’t want you to make a big deal out of it,” she says carefully and when Chloe doesn’t erupt into any flash of emotion, she breathes a little easier. 

“Why would I?” 

“Because you’re convinced I’m in love with Stacie and I was afraid you’d take this as some sort of sign that we are secretly together,” Aubrey states simply. 

“But you can’t deny the signs!” Chloe throws back immediately, and there’s the scheming best friend Aubrey’s familiar with. 

“We’re two friends who live together.” 

“And who got secretly married,” Chloe argues. 

“For convenience.” 

“And you didn’t tell your friends who all think you’re in a relationship.” 

“Because we were afraid they’d take it as proof that we are hiding a relationship when we’re not,” Aubrey replies. 

“But you’re hiding a marriage.” 

“A marriage that’s more a contract than a declaration of love.” 

“But you think Stacie is attractive.” 

“Anybody with eyes and a working brain thinks Stacie’s attractive. _You_  think Stacie’s attractive,” Aubrey says. 

“I’m not the one married to her, you are,” Chloe says with an a-ha! sort of tone that implies she thinks she’s finally gained the upper hand. “And you’ve had the hots for Stacie since sophomore year.” 

“No, I haven’t,” Aubrey argues because she really _hadn’t_. 

The Bellas captain at the time had allowed the two newest Bella members to sit in on auditions, citing a future leader amongst them as the reason and both Aubrey and Chloe had been eager to spend more time learning from their captain. It’s true that when Stacie had walked onto the stage wearing skin-tight jeans and a white knit shirt that barely covered anything Aubrey’s expression had lit up. Chloe had been relentless in her teasing but at that point, Aubrey hadn’t been entirely comfortable with her sexuality and it wasn’t until much, _much_ , later that she’d begun to fully embrace her attraction to women, and by then she and Stacie were already close friends and any lingering traces of her confusing crush had dissipated. 

At the end of that school year, much to the shock and horror of both Chloe and Aubrey, and most of the other Bellas, their captain selected Alice to be the new Bellas captain (over Maggy, who clearly deserved it more) but her decision was final, and as such everybody fell into formation.

The first rehearsal under Alice’s reign was rough but tolerable up until during a water break Stacie had leaned over and whispered a joke to Aubrey that was so ridiculous, it caused the blonde to laugh unexpectedly loudly, attracting the attention of everybody, including that of Alice who had demanded to know what Stacie had told Aubrey, and despite it being a stupidly dorky pun, Stacie had refused. 

“That’s none of your business,” she’d said. 

“Everything you do is my business, I’m your captain!” Alice had sneered. 

“This isn’t a cult, I don’t owe you anything,” Stacie had said in that characteristically laissez-faire tone she’d favoured all throughout college and Alice had gone off on her. 

Aubrey will never forget how entirely disaffected Stacie had seemed while Alice had raged at her, yelling all sorts of obscenities and threats until Stacie had casually untied the yellow and blue scarf from around her neck and draped it over Alice’s shoulder. 

The move effectively silenced the girl, though her face remained pinched and angry. 

“I don’t need this.”

Next to her, Chloe had quietly whispered “what?” but Aubrey could only stare in surprise. 

“Ex _cuse_  me?” 

Stacie leaned in close with a placed smile. “I quit.” 

Stacie didn’t wait for a response, had already been halfway across the rehearsal space before Alice sputtered out a few words but Stacie just ignored them and left. 

Years later, when bringing up old memories, Stacie told Aubrey that if she’d known at the time that all that pent up rage bottling up in Alice would have been redirected to Chloe and Aubrey, she might not have made the same decision, but that at the time it had felt good and right. She’d gotten to party for a whole year, properly focus on school work and have a social life with friends that weren’t only interested in 80s music or vocal warm-ups. 

Stacie had stayed friends with Chloe and Aubrey but the separation and total lack of overlap in schedule had made them realise how much of their friendship was built around gruelling rehearsals and proximity. It hadn’t stopped Aubrey from showing up at Stacie’s door at the start of the new academic year to try and entice her back to the Bellas with a promise of more peaceful rehearsals and a room all to herself in the large Bella house. 

Stacie had happily accepted and not kicked up too much of a fuss when Aubrey became an aca-dictator in her senior year, had known that it could be so much worse and pleased that at least the jabs had never been directed at her. 

Living in the Bella house with Stacie and Chloe had been one of the highlights of Aubrey’s senior year and she’s grateful they had that year together because that’s when she truly got to know Stacie, and when their friendship truly began. 

Sometimes she wonders what would have happened had Stacie not come back to the Bellas, had they not become closer, and she finds she can’t even imagine a life without the woman in it. 

Aubrey faintly registers that Chloe’s talking, a long, winded, breathless monologue that begs to be interrupted so she leans back in her chair and says, “But seriously, Chlo, how did you find out?” 

“It’s all over Instagram!” 

“It is not,” Aubrey says in a droll voice as she reaches for her cellphone. She grimaces at the sight of all the missed calls from Chloe before clicking through to the app and opening her profile page. 

“Yes, it is,” Chloe says. “I was doing some sleuthing, as I do.” 

“As you do,” Aubrey agrees. 

“And I puzzled it all together.” 

“Yeah, okay.” They hadn’t been exactly subtle about it, Aubrey has to admit. “Why were you sleuthing?” 

Chloe falls silent at that, takes far too long to answer and that suddenly piques Aubrey’s interest. 

“Chlo?” 

“Just… for fun.” 

“I don’t believe that for a minute.” 

“Yeah, well…” 

“Do I need to come out there?” Aubrey says, her voice a mixture of joking and threatening but it does the trick as Chloe laughs softly. 

“You know I’ll never say no to that,” she admits before sighing slowly. “It’s just the season. Has me a little melancholic. It’ll pass. Have you talked to her lately?” 

“No,” Aubrey says. Her heart clenches at Chloe’s quiet voice, never quite sure how to deal with the situation and a part of her hates how she’d treated Chloe her senior year, thinks that maybe if she hadn’t been so hard on the new Bellas, Chloe might’ve done something more than just yearn from afar. “Stacie has, though. I think they’re going to try to meet up soon.” 

“Are you gonna be a good wife and go with Stacie?” Chloe asks innocently and Aubrey had been so focused on Chloe’s apparent sadness that the jab takes her completely by surprise. 

“Chloe!” 

The laughter that follows gives her some measure of relief that not all is bleak in the woman’s life, and she shakes her head with fond exasperation. 

“That’s not a no,” Chloe manages breathlessly between laughs and a soft giggle falls from Aubrey’s lips at the infectious sound. 

“Don’t make our marriage a big deal,” she tries sternly. 

“Sure, okay. Listen, when you start having kids, am I still supposed to pretend not to know you’re in love?” 

“I’m going to hang up on you.” 

Chloe’s laugh softens, tapering out to a few intermittent giggles before stopping altogether with a deep, calming breath. 

“Okay, I’m good.” 

“Good,” Aubrey says with a smile. “And can I say, if I do fall in love with somebody, I’d definitely tell you.” 

“Tell me next time _before_ you get married, please.” 

“Promise,” Aubrey says and Chloe makes a pleased sound. “How’s work?” 

“Did I show you the pictures of our jaguar cub?” 

“No!” she says immediately, sitting up in her chair. “You haven’t!” 

“Oh my god, okay—” 

It’s much, much later when she finally hangs up with Chloe, and she starts turning back to her screen, back to her forgotten report that she now needs to start all over again, when there’s a quick rap on her office door before it’s opened and Stacie pokes her head in. 

“Hey,” Aubrey says with a wide smile as she relaxes back in her chair. “What are you doing here?” 

“Lunch?” Stacie offers with a sweet smile and Aubrey glances at the clock hanging over the doorway, eyes going a little wide when she notices how much time she’d lost talking to Chloe — not that talking to her was in any way misused time, she just hadn’t realised how much time had passed. 

“Wait,” Aubrey says, finally also realising how unusual it is for Stacie to have come to her. “Don’t you have to work?” 

“Our building was evacuated so I have the rest of the day off,” Stacie says with a dismissive wave of the hand as she drops into the chair opposite Aubrey’s desk with a soft huff, easily settling in and crossing one leg over the other. 

“What?” 

“What?” 

A flash of exasperation flits through her as she keeps her eyes on Stacie and notes how nonplussed she seems. “Why was your building evacuated?” 

“Because it has to be aired out,” Stacie answers distractedly, typing something on her phone. “Do you wanna go out for lunch or get it delivered?” 

“Stacie.” 

“Hm?” 

“ _Stacie_ ,” Aubrey tries again in a firmer tone, eyebrow arching up when Stacie glances up at her. 

“One of our teams had their final product test and it… didn’t go as planned,” Stacie finally says with a wry smile. “They _say_  that there aren’t any dangerous toxins floating around in the air but the firefighters sent us all home anyway, just as a precaution.” 

“Jesus christ,” Aubrey breathes, her disbelief exacerbated by Stacie’s completely relaxed reaction to the whole situation. “I’m going to take out a life insurance policy for you.” 

The loud laugh it elicits causes Aubrey to relax back into her chair.

“It’s honestly not that big a deal,” Stacie tries to reason but Aubrey’s already shaking her head, ready with a rebuttal. 

“Every time you talk about work, it’s something that went wrong.”

“It doesn’t happen _that_  often.” 

“Last week you came home covered in blood.” 

“It wasn’t _my_ blood,” Stacie argues and Aubrey’s eyes go wide as she throws up her hands. 

“I know it wasn’t your blood but that doesn’t make it any better!” 

“I work at an experiment lab, Aubrey, things are supposed to go wrong.” 

“So last month when I had to pick you up at the hospital because you fell down the stairs in your chair?” 

Stacie leans back at that, arms crossing as she purses her lips, knows she can’t counter that one. 

“Team building,” she tries as Aubrey shakes her head slowly with a small, smug grin. 

“You’re not part of a team.” 

“That hurts my feelings.” 

“No, it doesn’t,” Aubrey throws back. 

“No, it doesn’t, but it’s important that the teams feel like they can explore and be creative within our workspace and sometimes that includes getting down and dirty with them,” Stacie explains. 

“I’m pretty sure Zach doesn’t go home with neon glowing skin.” 

“You’d be surprised,” Stacie says.  

“You’re lying.” 

“Why do you think casual Fridays exist?” Stacie says, eyebrow ticking up as she dares Aubrey to challenge her. 

“You go to work dressed casually every day,” Aubrey says, gesturing to Stacie’s jeans and Levi’s logo t-shirt.

“A couple of weeks ago Zach went home with temporary tattoo-based glucose monitors to test on the twins.” 

“There is no way Norah let him put temporary tattoos on Hazel and Callum, let alone _experimental_  temporary tattoo tech.” 

“You sure about that?” Stacie says, reaching for her phone again and flicking through her conversation with Zach to bring up the photo he’d sent her. She easily finds the picture she’d been looking for, Zach’s twins smiling up at the camera with their left arms sticking out and showing the golden shimmer of a temporary tattoo that one of their teams had embedded a microsensor into. 

She turns her phone slides it across Aubrey’s desk towards her, and Aubrey softens at the sight of the twins before schooling her features, scowling at Stacie. 

“So you’re saying that not only are _you_  getting into dangerous shenanigans at work, I can’t even trust Zach to be the reasonable one in your partnership?” 

Stacie rolls her eyes so hard she thinks they’re going to stay stuck that way as she takes her phone back and drops to the chair once more. 

“Maybe I should get _you_ life insurance for worrying yourself into an early grave.” 

Aubrey finally breaks at that, shoulders bowing as she tries to suppress a sharp laugh, shaking her head softly. 

“Did you have a place in mind for lunch?” 

“Mo told me MamaCoffee has an artichoke soup this week,” Stacie says with a small smile and raised eyebrows and Aubrey has to work hard not to sigh with delight. 

She quickly glances at her computer screen to make sure no important messages have come in before pushing away from her desk and standing up. “Okay, let’s go.” 

Stacie smiles as she gets up, holds out her arm and waits patiently as Aubrey grabs her bag and rounds the desk, hand easily slipping into and linking with Stacie’s arm as they make their way out of her office. 

“Does the glucose monitor actually work?” Aubrey asks with an interested tilt of the head. 

“It sorta does.” 

“That’s really cool.” 

“It is,” Stacie says with a proud smile. “The issue they’re having is getting a specific numerical read-out instead of a level range.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“Well…” 

 

* * *

 

“Do you ever think about it?” Aubrey says without any preamble as she tugs her headphones down to her neck and the way Stacie immediately pauses her game and turns to her is enough to convince Aubrey that she hadn’t been paranoid when she’d noticed Stacie furtively and constantly looking her way. 

“Think about what?” 

“Kids,” Aubrey says. 

Stacie leans forward slightly to drop her Playstation controller on the coffee table right next to her feet, before pulling said feet under her body, crossing them as she squirms to turn and face Aubrey. She gently holds Aubrey’s ankles in place as she moves, keeps the blonde’s feet in her lap and drops her other hand there, squeezing softly. 

“What do you mean, exactly?” 

Aubrey can’t help the small smile as she looks down, trying to tamp down the surge of affection she feels at Stacie’s way of fully shifting, and offering, her undivided attention, even if it does fluster her slightly, knowing that she’s being closely watched as she tries to sort through her mind looking for the core of the issue. 

“I don’t know,” Aubrey says, fingers twisting in the cord of her headphones. “Having kids?” 

Stacie looks completely surprised by her words, eyebrows shooting up and the light circles her thumb had been pressing into Aubrey’s ankle halts. 

“It’s just… Kids terrify me,” Aubrey admits softly.

“You love kids,” Stacie exclaims, her words coming out with an incredulous burst of laughter. 

“I love other people’s kids,” Aubrey says but Stacie just scoffs so she finally lifts her eyes from where she’d been staring at her legs, deep in thought. “The kind that I can give back after a few hours and that are at no serious risk of me seriously fucking them up for the rest of their lives.” 

She tries for a joking tone but it has the opposite effect, a worried look crossing Stacie’s face before her eyebrows drop into a deep frown. Her gaze flickers between Aubrey’s eyes before taking a scrutinising look down her body. 

“What happened?” 

“What do you mean?” Aubrey asks defensively, very tempted to pull her legs out of Stacie’s lap and curl them under her body but Stacie’s hands are so warm on her skin. 

“Where’s this coming from?” Stacie asks, her voice soft and without the urgency from before. 

“I’ve just been thinking about it a lot,” she says with a shrug. 

“Because of Penny?” 

Now it’s her turn to be confused and Aubrey lifts her head to meet Stacie’s eyes, “What?” 

“Because Penny’s having a baby?” 

“Oh,” she says but then Stacie’s assumption gives her pause as she considers how the woman might’ve gotten to that point and she takes a moment to look at Stacie, really look at her before her eyes flicker away, settling on the tattoo Stacie has on her wrist of a single American penny that she’d gotten in honour of her sister. “No. Have you been thinking about it because of Penny?” 

“Yeah,” Stacie says with a shrug but doesn’t elaborate. 

“Why’s that?” 

She stretches her foot, pokes Stacie’s stomach with her toes and it draws a breathless chuckle from Stacie, her fingers tightening on Aubrey’s ankles and pulling her feet far away enough to not be able to tickle her some more. 

“Just your usual introspection,” Stacie gives with a wry smile and a shake of the head that almost begs Aubrey not to prod further. “If not her, then why?” 

“A selection of emails.” 

“Ooh,” Stacie coos, her excitement put on and effective in relaxing Aubrey slightly. “Let me guess, one from Vaughn about your mother?” 

“Yes,” Aubrey confirms. “And one from Grant about the one from Vaughn.” 

“You’re like the most dysfunctional trio of siblings I’ve ever met in my life,” Stacie comments with a shake of the head and Aubrey can’t really dispute that. “With your ridiculous emailing back and forth. Why don’t you have a group chat like every other person on the planet?” 

“Because Vaughn has the type of phone that you could leave in a cement mixer overnight and still use the next day, Grant doesn’t understand the language of texting, and I have zero interest being involved in my older brothers’ constant fighting about our mother.”

“And this circles back to thinking about having kids how exactly?” 

“What if fucking up your kids is genetic?” 

Stacie pauses at that, the part of her that gets wound up when they banter like that crashing to an abrupt halt as the topic from before is put into context. 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Aubrey…” 

“What if, even if I try not to, I repeat the sins of my parents and just, completely wreck my kid’s life and fuck them up for good?” 

“I think just the fact that you’re worried about that means you won’t,” Stacie says, her words slow and calculated but Aubrey can see that she’s still thinking of ways to answer her question. “And— _hm_.” 

Stacie’s eyes glance up at her and away almost immediately, her cheek moving and Aubrey can tell she’s biting the inside of it, considering whether to say the words or not. 

“What?” she urges, twisting her ankle in Stacie’s loose grip to get her attention. “Tell me.” 

“I’m not discounting the fact that you had an emotionally fucked up childhood—” Stacie starts, taking a deep breath as Aubrey’s eyes narrow slightly. “But some would argue that, on paper, objectively, you’re not doing so badly.” 

Stacie’s right — _of course_ Stacie’s right — and sometimes it feels so trivial to talk about or even think the way she does considering where she is in life. From an emotional angle her childhood may not have been the greatest but it was never rough, and she’d never had to want for anything. She’d always been housed and clothed and fed — sometimes to excess — and they’d never struggled. Her father’s company had been flourishing by the time she was born and even Grant and Vaughn, with their considerable age gap, had never had to live roughly either so sometimes it feels like she’s being an entitled, spoiled brat when she talks about her past. Stacie’s never looked at it that way and it makes her feel safe and Aubrey’s not sure there’s anybody else in the world she could talk to about this without feeling like she has to apologise for her upbringing. 

Stacie’s the only one who has real insight, and who gets to see her pretty much non-existent bond with her father and her stilted relationship with her brothers, borne of a resentful father disappointed in all of his children for different reasons. 

Jackson Posen had raised his company up from nothing, similar to how he had been raised from nothing, and his eldest son wanting to become a doctor was completely fine and acceptable, until his second son and the presumptive heir to his empire, disregarded seemingly everything their father worked for to become a self-proclaimed anti-capitalist nomad. 

As a teenager with brothers well into their twenties, Aubrey had believed that her older siblings’ lack of interest in what their father had created meant that she’d had a clear shot to the top, that their father, a man who supposedly placed high value on family and tradition, would be proud of her for rising to the occasion when her brothers would not. 

It wasn’t until much, much later — far too late to be considered reasonable — had she realised how foolish that thought had been but by then she’d been in too deep, had already committed to the goal of one day taking over her father’s company. She hates how entitled it makes her feel but she hates even more the idea that all of her hard work over the years had been for nothing. 

And if she starts thinking about how different her life could have been had she come to this conclusion earlier, she’d—

“Aubrey, baby, look at me.” 

She’s not sure when exactly Stacie crawled onto her lap and how long she’s been cupping Aubrey’s face in her hands but the sight of Stacie’s bright green eyes staring down at her cause the whirlwind of emotions in her to halt, clearing slowly as she lets herself be drawn back to the present by Stacie’s warm touch and even warmer gaze. 

“I love you,” Stacie says softly, holding her gaze to show Aubrey she means it. “And if you think that I’m gonna let you fuck up your future kid then you are sorely mistaken, my friend.” 

A giggle escapes her lips before she even knows what’s happening and then Stacie’s pointed look shifts into a huge grin, thumbs smoothing over Aubrey’s cheeks. 

“And we are not letting your father anywhere near the kid.” 

“Poor kid’s not gonna have any grandparents on my side,” Aubrey says, joking along and Stacie rolls her eyes as she moves one of her hands away from Aubrey’s face to tuck a few strands behind her ear. 

“You underestimate the willpower of one Ana Conrad,” Stacie says in a matter-of-fact voice. “I’m pretty sure if ranked, her favourite daughters would be: one, Penelope; two, Aubrey; three, Anastasia.” 

“You think you’re as high as number three?” Aubrey manages to say, the heavy, panicky feeling that had welled up in her chest all but gone with the return of their back and forth teasing. 

“I’m hoping that the fact she wouldn’t have met you without me puts me at least higher than Florentina,” Stacie says, referring to her mother's cat and Aubrey shoots her a sceptical smile and when she shakes her head softly, Stacie lets go of her long enough for Aubrey to bury her face in Stacie’s shoulder and wrap her arms around her middle in a tight hug. 

Stacie buries her fingers in blonde hair, keeps Aubrey close as she turns to press a quick kiss to her head. 

“I’m sorry your family loves me more than you,” Aubrey says, words muffled by Stacie’s t-shirt and Stacie’s responding laugh is loud and unabashed. 

“That’s okay,” she says between giggles. “As long as I’m _your_  favourite.” 

Aubrey considers staying quiet, teasing Stacie a little bit but she can’t find it in herself to do it so she nods, tightens her hold on Stacie. 

“You’re my favourite.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave me love!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realised there may have been some confusion in the last chapter about how many sisters Stacie has so I'd just like to say: she just has the one sister, Penelope (Penny), and the Florentina mentioned in the line up of Mama Conrad's favourite girls is actually her cat.  
> Also, enjoy this chapter, folks ;)

The pulsing bass and erratic strobe lights achieve the effect of making Stacie feel more intoxicated than she actually is, a rational thought that she wouldn’t have been able to come to had she been as drunk as earlier, as before she’d swapped out her mixed drinks for virgin Cuba Libres. It’s a sad, sad reality that she can’t party as hard as she did in college, and seeing some of the friends she’s with, who she’d met during the only year she hadn’t been a Barden Bella, still adding more alcohol to their systems makes Stacie grieve for them in advance and lower her beverage intake even more and even quicker. 

The girls had come out to San Francisco for the weekend and begged Stacie to party with them, “for old times sake” and while she’d been reluctant — going so far as to ask Aubrey to give her a good excuse not to go — she’d decided last minute to join them anyway if only to see one of Mo’s infrequent sets DJing at a hot new club. Aubrey had said something about two birds with one stone and Stacie had agreed.  

Aubrey hadn’t joined them because she didn’t know Stacie’s friends and she had a hot date with their bathtub and a new podcast about Chernobyl and Stacie had appreciated the opportunity to be with a different crowd and to see if the turbulent way she’d been feeling for weeks would persist even under a heavy cloak of copious alcohol, loud music, and good company. 

Mo had been DJing since Aubrey met him after they both finished grad school — Wharton for Aubrey and Yale Law for Mo — and were living in New York City. A stuffy charity gala that they’d both been sent to by their respective parents to represent the family company, had sat them next to each other and they’d instantly connected over their loathing of American high society dining foods and he’d invited her to one of his gigs the next day. 

Stacie always loves hearing the story, especially because they both tell it with a measure of amusement and embarrassment, but Aubrey had gone to the club the next night and met up with Mo, who at the time believed he may possibly be fulfilling his mother’s wishes of finding a nice, well-off woman to whom he could be married, preferably somebody with a future empire of her own so that the families could make some sort of strategic business move. Mo’s mother had approved of Aubrey Posen — _“Despite the fact that she is an American”_ — and Mo had enjoyed talking to her at the gala. Aubrey had gone to the club because she’d only recently moved to the city and had just started working for her father and had exactly zero friends in New York City so Mo had been an opportunity to change that. 

It wasn’t until they both hit on the same girl at the bar that Aubrey had learned that Mo thought the night was somewhat of a date and that Mo learned that Aubrey actually wasn’t interested in guys. They’d still remained in close contact and years later when Aubrey had decided to leave Hong Kong for San Francisco, where he’d been living for a few years, he’d welcomed her — and by extension Stacie — with open arms and they’d all been friends since. 

Stacie had texted Mo earlier that day, explaining to him that she was gonna be out with a group of friends from college and he’d wooed her despite not needing to, so when they’d arrived at the club, the girls had been awed by the fact that they could walk in without having to queue, and her friends had been downright dazzled by Stacie taking the lead and striding into the VIP area without even being asked to give her name. 

Mo had been standing at the top of the stairs to the VIP area waiting for them and Stacie had to shake her head at the self-satisfied smile he wore. When she’d gotten close enough, he softened and pulled her into a tight hug that Stacie happily returned, ignoring the gushing and tittering of her friends behind her. 

“You have a beard now?” Stacie said as she pulled back, tilting his head sideways to give her a better angle as his smile turned smug once again. “Is that how long I haven’t seen you?” 

“Yeah well, my cousins back home said I was a bad Arab for not having one and when I asked Andre for an honest opinion he admitted I looked like a college freshman baby,” Mo said and Stacie burst into laughter at that, fingers moving through his beard as she cocked her head in consideration. 

“It’s a surprisingly good look on you,” she admitted. 

“Oh, I know,” he said with a half-grin that Stacie couldn’t help but smile and roll her eyes at. 

“Stacie, who’s your friend?” one of the women with her had said to remind her of their presence and before she could even say anything, Mo had stepped around her and introduced himself with that charming air he had about him and Stacie had to work hard to suppress an eye roll at how her friends all seemed to melt and fawn over him. 

He offered them a tour of the VIP area, mentioning on the way that they were more than welcome to use his special booth before leading them to the DJ nook where the mixing table had been set up with a great view of the dance floor below. After profusely thanking Mo for his generosity and kindness, the women had finally agreed to Stacie’s request for them to go actually dance and so they left Mo to the mixing. 

They’d been dancing for a while and Stacie was enjoying herself, just letting loose and letting go of everything and succumbing to the music. Stacie is snapped out of her rapturous blankness by her friends telling her they’re going to the bathroom and instead of attempting to yell something back, she holds up her thumb and keeps moving to the music. 

A new song fades in just as the girls leave and Stacie feels so old when the crowd around her starts singing along to the random words while she has no idea who the artist even is. Still, it’s not a hard beat to follow so she keeps moving, and when she glances over the crowd, she makes eye contact with a tall woman a bit away who takes Stacie’s lingering gaze as invitation to dance closer.  

The woman is slightly taller than her, which is not something Stacie’s used to and she can’t hear her speak but she can see the woman’s mouth move as she says “Hi.”  

Her hair is long and dark and wavy but her eyes are so light that Stacie has a hard time deciding if they’re grey or ice blue but it doesn’t matter as they start dancing, inching closer to each other under the guise of the crowd forcing them to and when the woman presses a hand against Stacie’s back, she doesn’t hesitate to close that gap, arms looping around the woman’s neck.  

The hands on her body feel so good and Stacie doesn’t feel guilty about enjoying it. The deal with Aubrey had been that she can’t date or sleep with anybody in case Jack leans into his suspicion about their marriage and has her watched but she figures that the dark, hazy nightclub is easily a space where no case can be made to the contrary so she lets herself go and lets the woman move her hand lower, their bodies moulded together as they keep in time to the rhythm. 

She lets out a soft moan when the woman squeezes her ass, only allowing herself the indulgence because she’s convinced the pounding music will drown her out but the woman smiles as if she knows exactly what she’s doing. Stacie rolls her eyes, tries to hide her coy grin and the woman’s hands move to her hips, turn her around and keeps them closely pressed against each other, her arm around Stacie’s waist tight but not suffocating and Stacie’s hips move in time with hers, head falling forward as she gasps softly, feeling flush with heat from the body behind hers and the warm nightclub. 

The woman reaches up with her free hand to move Stacie’s hair to the side, over her shoulder and freeing up her neck but then fingertips drag along the back of Stacie’s neck.  

“What’s the B stand for?” she asks, her voice low and hoarse with desire as she curls into Stacie so that her mouth brushes against her ear.  

“What?” Stacie says, has to blink a few times to clear her mind of the fog that had comfortably settled over her.  

“The B,” she says, tracing over the ink at the nape of Stacie’s neck. “What does it stand for?”  

The reminder of the tattoo there breaks the spell and Stacie rips away from her as if burned and the woman’s surprise is clear as she tries to grab at Stacie again with a worried look.  

She’s saying something but Stacie can’t make it out over the music and the newly formed distance between them, can only see her mouth moving and even though she knows she won’t be heard, Stacie apologises quickly.  

“I’m married,” she says but the woman just looks confused by the abrupt change in her so she holds up her left hand to show off her rings and the woman’s eyes go wide and she takes a step back.  

Stacie mouths another “Sorry” and the woman shakes her head and disappears into the crowd, the people all easily filling the space she’d been occupying and trapping Stacie on the dance floor in a haze of moving bodies. 

She’s not sure why she’d had such a visceral reaction but suddenly everything had felt so incredibly wrong, the voice, the touch, even her eyes and Stacie can’t shake the feeling that she’s being unfaithful despite having no such relationship with Aubrey.  

Stacie lifts her fingers to the back of her neck, tracing over the Bellas logo tattooed there while frowning at her unexpected response to being asked about it. She only then notices how long her friends have been gone but she doesn’t want to risk looking out over the crowd and making eye contact with anybody else so Stacie slowly makes her way through the horde of drunken partiers, stumbling when she makes it to the edge and has full control over her legs again.  

The bouncer guarding the VIP area lets her through with a gruff nod and she heads up to their Mo’s booth where they’ve dumped all their things, fishing her phone out of her bag and checking her texts.  

The glare of the screen is so bright that she flinches initially before her eyes adjust and she sees the time. A touch on her elbow startles her but when she turns, Mo’s already wearing an apologetic smile.  

“You good?” he asks, leaning in because even though the music is a little more muted in the VIP area, it’s still fairly loud. 

“Yeah, I’m great,” she says, mustering up a smile for him. “But it’s pretty late so I think I’m gonna go home. Have you seen my friends?”  

He hooks a thumb over his shoulder so Stacie glances that way, towards the DJ booth and sees her three friends there. Her skittish mood dissipates to make way for a teasing grin and an arched eyebrow levelled at Mo.  

“Please at least don’t fuck all of them at the same time,” she manages and the way his mouth drops open and his eyes grow wide shows that she’s truly taken him by surprise.  

“I wasn’t planning to!” he defends immediately but Stacie just arches an eyebrow in disbelief because they both know that it’s not out of the realm of possibility for him given his sordid past and how willing people are once they find out who his family is. 

He glances that way quickly, hand coming up to rub at his beard and he turns to her with an inquiring look. 

“Do you think they’d be into it?” 

“Mo!” she berates in an exaggeratedly scandalised voice. 

“Okay, okay!” he says, throws up his hands in innocence. “Just one of them, then?” 

She shakes her head with fond exasperation as she looks at him because she really has missed him and his effortlessly charming attitude.

She glances at her phone quickly and he follows her gaze, notices how she squints her eyes at the bright screen. 

“Do you want me to call my driver to take you home?” he says and Stacie warms at the offer, gives him an unfiltered smile. 

“You’re sweet,” she says as she motions to her phone. “But Aubrey’s picking me up.” 

He coos at her, and Stacie’s already narrowing her eyes when he says, “I hope one day I find a loving wife like you two are to each other.” 

She rips away from him with a groan but can’t suppress the smile on her face and Mo laughs loudly at her reaction. 

“I hate all of you,” Stacie tries to grumble. 

“I had to give Leia fifty dollars because of you,” Mo says, crossing his arms. 

“You own a yacht!” 

“That’s not the point. Have you met Leia? Do you know how smug she was?” 

“Why were you betting on our love life anyway, huh?” Stacie tries to fight, poking at his shoulder. “Shoulda thought about that before betting fifty bucks.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” he says with a shake of the head and Stacie’s bluster melts away and he reaches for the finger jabbing at him and uses it to pull her into a quick hug. “I gotta get back.” 

“Have fun,” she teases as they bid each other goodbye. 

She watches him go back to the DJ nook, shaking her head as the girls all flock back around him. Stacie drops to the plush leather sofa, sinking into it as she taps out a quick text to Aubrey and hits send, waiting for the inevitable reply before closing her eyes and leaning her head back.  

There’s a niggling voice at the back of her head that forces her to look at the whole picture, to take all the tiny tidbits of evidence and tie them all together with a neat red string like a private investigator with a wall of pictures in one of those classic crime movies. The voice almost begs her to consider it all and Stacie lets it take over, short moments flashing behind her eyelids. There’s no reason she should have reacted the way she did to the woman from earlier because she hadn’t been doing anything wrong. That’s the mantra that’s been bouncing around her brain but the words don’t feel right. She tries saying them out loud, relying on the music to drown her voice out to anybody that might be nearby, and still the words don’t feel right, leave a bad taste in her mouth.  

She may not have been doing anything wrong technically, but somehow, it still felt wrong.

It’s been so long since she’s been with anybody, and not just because of the limits of her marriage to Aubrey, so of course it had felt so incredibly good to be touched and held and felt. But it hadn’t felt fulfilling in the way she’d wanted it to feel, and Stacie can’t let go of how wrong her eyes had been.  

They were the wrong shade, and the woman’s hands were the wrong type of touch, and her smile was the wrong kind of grin but for the life of her Stacie can’t figure out why she feels that way.  

If that had been wrong, then what is right? 

Before she can even go down that road, someone taps her shoulder and her eyes snap open. The waitress in front of her has a kind smile even if her eyes trail down and scrutinise Stacie’s to make sure she’s not completely wasted and in need of actual assistance.  

Stacie returns the smile, eyebrows lifting in question and the woman sets a cocktail on the table in front of her.  

“I didn’t—”  

“It’s from him,” she interrupts before Stacie finishes, pointing to a man two booths over as she tucks the tray under her arm and waits for Stacie’s “thanks” before walking away.  

Stacie’s sobered up enough that she’s sure one added drink won’t do much damage and when she reaches for it, she can see the man surreptitiously look her way. She smiles and lifts the drink, and even though he can’t hear her, she still says, “Thank you.”  

He moves to stand up and that makes her shake her head, giving him pause as he frowns. For the second time that night, she holds up her left hand and wriggles her fingers, the diamonds on her engagement ring catching one of the many laser and strobe lights in the club and his eyes go wide with understanding.  

He shrugs and with a rueful smile leans back in his seat and Stacie’s grateful he’s backing down that easily as he turns back to his friends. 

She slowly sips from the drink, some sort of coconut peach mix that she can’t figure out but that goes down far too easily as her thumb fiddles with the diamond-studded band of her engagement ring.  

The club lights are dizzying and mesmerising and Stacie finds herself staring at a random spot on the wall, eyes unfocused and for once her brain mercifully blank.  

The exhaustion that hits her is sudden but not unexpected and Stacie regrets not taking a nap earlier like Aubrey had suggested and her mind drifts off again as she lets her eyes close slowly, rationalising to nobody but her own mind that she should just rest her eyes until her phone buzzes.  

She has no idea how long her eyes are closed for but after a few calls of her name she reluctantly opens them again and when she does, she swears she sees an angel.  

She blinks a few more times, willing her contacts to cooperate and her eyes to focus as she tries to make everything unfuzzy again and Aubrey slowly comes into focus and Stacie can’t control her growing smile at the sight.  

Aubrey’s standing over her, phone and car keys in hand looking completely out of place in the club with her jeans and what Stacie knows to be a very soft blouse, hair pulled up into a messy ponytail.  

She’s backlit by the lights and she looks like a mirage and for a brief moment, Stacie wonders if she’s picturing things. She turns over the phone on her hand to see if she has any new texts, frowning softly at the hour before turning back to Aubrey with a confused look.  

“You okay there?” Aubrey asks with amusement colouring her tone.  

Stacie holds out her thumb up and nods but doesn’t move to get off the couch. “I didn’t expect you to come inside.”  

“I wanted to say hi to Mo,” she replies with a soft smile that warms Stacie all the way to the tips of her fingers. “I’ll be right back,” she says, her fingers flitting down Stacie’s arm softly and the touch sends her reeling.  

She barely manages a nod and watches as Aubrey walks to the DJ booth and taps Mo on the shoulder. When he turns and recognises her, he reacts very similarly to how he had when he saw Stacie, with a grin and a big hug and Stacie giggles to herself when she sees the women around him eye up Aubrey with clear jealousy. Aubrey and Mo have a quick chat and before long Aubrey’s turning back, making her way to Stacie with that familiar expression, not quite a smile but her lips upturned and her eyes practically sparkling.  

Stacie’s not sure if her eyes have always been that way or if it’s just a trick of the light but she has to look away, leans her head back and closes her eyes for a second.  

That light, slightly breathless feeling in her chest dies as soon as she opens her eyes again, gaze narrowing at the man stood in front of Aubrey. Her glower comes out in full force when she recognises him as the man who’d sent her a drink, and a possessive streak flares up inside of her as she rises.

That final drink had clearly been a mistake, her head swirling and the alcohol hitting her so suddenly she has to blink a few times to make sure the room’s not actually spinning. 

As soon as she’s firmly standing on her two feet, she stalks forward with her bag slung across her body, eyes narrowing on where the man has cupped Aubrey’s elbow and Stacie can see her saying something but she’s too far and too focused to hear it, and when she reaches them she practically rips his hand off Aubrey’s skin and turns to him with a scowl and a, “Hands off my wife, fuckface.”  

In his surprise he turns to her with a scowl, mouth set and clearly ready for a confrontation but his fight fizzles out at the sight of her, probably registering her words slower than if he were entirely sober and once he makes that connection, makes the link from her to Aubrey, his eyes go wide and he holds up his hands innocently as he turns to go.

Aubrey’s looking at her with an exasperated look but Stacie doesn’t focus on that, the departure of the guy having taken her sour mood with him and she’s all smiles again now that she’s closer to Aubrey and can see those green eyes up close and personal.  

“Hi,” Stacie says, swaying closer with a smile and Aubrey tucks her car keys and phone into her jeans’ pockets to free up her hands, sliding them around Stacie’s waist and pulling her into her body. Stacie goes willingly and the urge to touch her is so strong that she doesn’t fight it, her index finger trailing over Aubrey’s cheek. “You’re so pretty.”  

Aubrey chuckles softly, tries to tamp down on her smile.  

“You’re not too bad yourself,” she says and the arms around her tighten so Stacie doesn’t hesitate to lean in and kiss Aubrey’s cheek, the one she’d been touching. Her lips linger as she basks in Aubrey’s embrace, in her soft skin and her firm grip and how good she smells.  

“You ready to go home, kitty cat?” Aubrey murmurs into her ear and Stacie nods but she makes no move to step away, instead dropping her face against Aubrey’s shoulder and letting that exploring touch move to the back of Aubrey’s neck, fingertip trailing along the lines of Aubrey’s matching Bellas tattoo.  “C’mon, let’s get you home,” Aubrey says, hand drifting up and down Stacie’s back in a hypnotising motion.  

She drops a kiss to the side of Stacie’s head before shrugging her shoulder and with a long sigh, Stacie lifts her head and detangles herself from Aubrey. She glances back at the DJ booth and waves goodbye to the girls there. Her attention is called back when Aubrey effortlessly slides her hand into Stacie’s and takes the lead, guiding them down the stairs and with a quick thank you to the bouncer there, they continue on, Aubrey’s determined expression practically parting the crowd and Stacie would be impressed by it if she weren’t so distracted by how nice Aubrey’s hand feels in hers.  

The moment they’re out of the smokey, haze club and the cool, fresh air hits her face, Stacie’s eyes go wide and she feels the last of the alcohol really hit her. She stops, more to avoid stumbling than anything and Aubrey turns to her with a concerned look.  

“I’m okay,” Stacie murmurs and tries for a smile but Aubrey’s expression doesn’t ease up so she tries for a wider smile, showing teeth and an involuntary laugh bubbles from Aubrey’s lips at the sight.  

“Then let’s go, kitty cat,” Aubrey says with an amused tone and Stacie lifts her left hand, fingers pressed to her temple in a wonky salute.  

“Yes, ma’am.”  

Aubrey laughs again, shakes her head. “Wrong hand, Stacie.”  

Before she can lift the correct hand to her temple, Aubrey’s taken it in her own, tugging once to urge her along as they make their way to her car. The car unlocks automatically as they approach, and Stacie doesn’t understand why she’s so happy to see Aubrey’s car but she doesn’t question it and doesn’t suppress the urge to press her hands against the hood of the car.  

“I really love your car, did you know that?” she says, spreading her fingers wide to feel more of the cool metal under her warm hands. 

“What are you doing, weirdo?” Aubrey asks, hands moving to Stacie’s hips again to steer her in the direction of the passenger side door.  

“Appreciating your car,” she says with a giggle thrown over her shoulder, her exhaustion mixed with that last bit of alcohol making her almost delirious.

“Appreciate it from inside, please.”  

“Okie-dokie,” Stacie says, sliding into the passenger seat after Aubrey opens the door for her and she’s very proud of herself for getting the seatbelt across her chest and into the buckle after only three tries.  

“Hands in?” Aubrey asks so she holds up her hands and lifts her legs until they bump the bottom of the dash and with a soft laugh, Aubrey closes the passenger door.  

Stacie doesn’t bother watching Aubrey scurry across to the other side, too busy with the annoying clasp of her stiletto heel. Her frown deepens the longer she fights against it, her fingers having lost their dexterity in her slightly tipsy state and she’s pouting at her ankle when Aubrey settles in her seat.  

“Help?” Stacie asks with a pitiful expression, lower lip jutted out and Aubrey only has to gesture before Stacie lifts her legs across the centre console.  

Aubrey makes quick work of it, unclasping both heels in no time and taking off the shoes, tossing them to Stacie’s side. Just as she’s about to pull back her legs and curl them under her body, Aubrey’s fingers close around one of her ankles, thumb smoothing over her skin.  

“What happened?” she asks.  

“Hm?” Stacie asks, distracted by the touch.  

Aubrey looks down at the ankle pointedly and Stacie follows her gaze, brow furrowing at the sight of a purpling mark.  

“Oh, I don’t know.” She shrugs distractedly and Aubrey touches the edge of the bruise again before letting go.  

She doesn’t look convinced but Stacie genuinely doesn’t remember how she got the bruise so there’s nothing she can say to appease the woman.  

Aubrey puts on her seatbelt and starts the car and Stacie sinks back in her seat, eyes closing as Aubrey pulls out of the parking lot. 

“Did you have fun?” Aubrey asks softly after a while and Stacie slowly blinks open her eyes, turning her head to look at Aubrey’s profile.  

She waits until Aubrey glances her way to nod, tired smile at the ready.  

“Good,” she says before turning back to the road as they fall into a pleasant silence. “Hey,” Aubrey says just as Stacie’s closing her eyes again. “Don’t fall asleep. We’re gonna be home soon.”  

“But I’m tired,” she says with a chuckle, closing her eyes. “And my contacts are sticky.”  

She doesn’t have to look at Aubrey to see the exasperated look, but she’s surprised by Aubrey poking her thigh right where her short dress ends.  

“Stacie,” she says and Stacie reluctantly opens her eyes, has to blink a few times to get some moisture in them so she’s slow to see the case being waved in front of her face.  

“What’s this?” she asks even as she reaches for it, melting all over again when she pops open the case and finds her thick-rimmed glasses there. She makes easy work of taking out her contacts and tossing them, sighing happily when she slides the glasses onto her face and the world becomes just that tad bit sharper again.  

“I love you, you know that?” she murmurs, perching an arm on the passenger door and leaning her head on her hand, looking sideways at Aubrey. 

“It was no effort at all,” Aubrey brushes off but a smile tugs at her lips.  

“You’re picking me up in the middle of the night, yeah it is,” Stacie pushes. “You are seriously the greatest.”  

They stop at a red light and Stacie’s feeling a lot more confident in her balance so she risks it, leaning over the center console to kiss Aubrey’s cheek again.  

“Thank you, babe.”  

“I love you, too, by the way,” Aubrey says, turning just as Stacie pulls away from Aubrey’s cheek so she hovers, doesn’t sit back and Aubrey doesn’t move away either, but she also doesn’t move closer and Stacie’s frozen in the moment, unsure of how to continue. Aubrey raises her eyebrows as if to ask what’s going on but all Stacie can focus on is her mouth and how she could just… close the gap and kiss her.  

The light turns green and the car behind them honks impatiently and Aubrey snaps away, eyes back on the road as she drives off and Stacie drops back to her seat with a long sigh.  

She takes a deep breath, keeps her eyes focused on the road as it all clicks together and slowly starts to make sense.  

“How much have you had to drink?” Aubrey asks with an amused lilt to her tone.  

“Hm?” Stacie hums with her eyes still on the road but her head tilted towards Aubrey. “What?”  

“How drunk are you right now?”  

“I was totally fine,” Stacie starts, filing away her creeping revelation to continue the conversation. “And then the guy bought me a drink and I guess it must’ve like, I dunno, restarted the fire.”  

“What guy?”  

“What?”  

“You said ‘the guy’, what guy are you talking about?” she repeats with a quick glance at Stacie.  

“Oh, the one that was talking to you. He bought me a drink earlier.”  

“Is that why you got adorably possessive?” Aubrey teases and she says them jokingly but it’s another piece of the puzzle that Stacie reluctantly has to take with her, realising that her visceral reaction had been out of the ordinary for her.  

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she deflects but Aubrey just hums in response, indicating her belief to the contrary.  

They pull up to the house not long after and Stacie groans when she realises she’s going to have to move her body up to the front door and then up the stairs to her bedroom and there’s a brief moment where she considers the pros and cons of sleeping in Aubrey’s car but that decision is taken from her when the passenger door opens and Aubrey leans over her to unbuckle her seatbelt.  

“Let’s go,” she says in a cheery voice as she holds out her hand and wriggles her fingers, urging Stacie out of the car. “I’m not letting you sleep here.”  

“Just crack a window, I’ll be fine,” Stacie tries but Aubrey’s shaking her head.  

“Don’t you want to take off that tight dress, wipe off your makeup and feel nice and refreshed after a shower?” Aubrey argues and Stacie’s eyes go wide.  

“I’m not doing all of that,” she says as she starts climbing out of the car.  

“You smell terrible,” Aubrey says but she still takes Stacie’s arm and loops it over her shoulder as her own arm winds around Stacie’s waist to keep her upright and stable.  

“You’re such a flatterer,” Stacie drolls and the quip is deliberately delivered to distract from the fact that she’s enjoying embracing Aubrey far more than she should be.  

Stacie’s exhaustion, both physically and emotionally, causes it all to blur together after that, Aubrey leading her inside and forcing her to drink a glass of water before they go upstairs and she sits Stacie down in the bathroom as she carefully removes her makeup for her.  

She has a vague recollection of telling Aubrey to go to bed because it’s late and that she can do it all herself but the blonde refusing and somehow Stacie ends up in her bed, showered and clean and warm and when she closes her eyes, the only image there is a smiling Aubrey leaning over her with a warm, green eyes. 

When she opens her eyes the next day, there’s way too much light in the bedroom.  

She immediately closes her eyes again, scrunching them tightly to prevent the morning light from touching even her eyelids but none of it helps as her brain still keenly feels the sharp, stabbing of the light and when Stacie tries to cover her head with her bedsheet, the pounding in her head becomes so loud that she can’t move and a pitiful whine escapes her lips.  

“Good morning,” Aubrey whispers and even though her voice is low and hushed, Stacie can tell she’s wearing a smile.  

“Leave me to die,” she groans, her throat feeling scratchy and her mouth tasting like cotton balls.  

Aubrey laughs then and the sound is so loud that Stacie’s face scrunches up further, only relaxing again when slender fingers brush some hair away from her face and drag through the strands.  

“Sorry,” Aubrey says, slowly carding her fingers through Stacie’s hair, fingertips soothing against her scalp and Stacie sighs softly in response. 

“This is a good way to go,” Stacie rasps out, finally mustering up enough energy to scoot closer to Aubrey, her hand moving out and patting along to figure out exactly where the blonde is.  

“Careful,” Aubrey says just as Stacie’s fingers brush against the edge of her tablet and Stacie makes a small noise from the back of her throat before moving her hand away, settling on what she believes is Aubrey’s pyjama covered thigh.  

“What time is it?”  

“2 pm.”  

“What?” Stacie practically shouts, eyes snapping open in surprise before all the pain rushes back, her head throbbing and her eyes stinging and she curls back into bed with a whimper. “That’s so late,” she murmurs.  

“Well, we did get home at like 3 in the morning.”  

“God, I can’t believe I partied until 3,” Stacie says as Aubrey resumes the motion of dragging fingers through her hair. “I feel like shit.”  

“I’m not surprised by that at all,” Aubrey says and Stacie dares to crack open an eye and look at her, lips pulling into a pout at the amused expression she finds on Aubrey.  

“Why did you let me go out and do this to myself?”  

Aubrey laughs again but not too loudly to aggravate her headache and Stacie’s grateful for at least that.  

“So I should just limit you to when we get drunk with the Bellas?” she offers.  

“I don’t even wanna _think_ about alcohol right now,” Stacie moans, a sudden wave of nausea hitting her just at the idea. “Have you been here long?”  

“Couple hours,” Aubrey says. “I came to make sure you weren’t dead.”

“How thoughtful,” Stacie says dryly but a small smile tugs at the corners of her mouth as she considers how actually kind that is, how caring Aubrey is with her. “Thanks for picking me up last night.”  

“It wasn’t any trouble, I was awake.”  

“At 3 am?” Stacie says, twisting to look at her and Aubrey nods when she sees the woman’s eyes on her. “Why were you up at 3?”  

“Pending a text from you,” she explains with a shrug, free hand fiddling with the corner of her tablet. “I don’t really sleep well until I know you’re home.”  

“Really?” Stacie asks, the tiniest furrow appearing on her brow as she shifts onto her back to get a better look at Aubrey.  

“Yeah,” Aubrey says. She can’t rake her fingers through Stacie’s hair anymore now that she’s shifted so she just keeps her fingers buried in her hair at the top of her head, fingertips moving slightly back and forth and it’s mesmerising all the same. “Why?”  

“Nothing, it’s just…” Stacie doesn’t finish that sentence, just shrugs to make it seem like it’s not a big deal but internally, she’s scrambling.  

In the light of the morning and without the lingering alcohol in her system, she finally manages to pinpoint that exact feeling, the flutter in her chest and the slight feeling of breathlessness when Aubrey looks at her with those green eyes. Open, warm, without any pretence or hidden agenda, just pure Aubrey and Stacie finally, suddenly realises that the only thing she wants to do right in that moment is kiss her.  

She’d felt it that night at dinner and at Mandy’s birthday party and again when Aubrey had looked so sad sitting on their couch and last night in the car and finally identifying that urge takes the breath from her lungs.  

“Stace?” Aubrey asks and there are those eyes again, darting between Stacie’s with slight concern.  

“Nothing,” she manages with a small smile and Aubrey relaxes slightly, leaning back against the headboard like she’d been before and her fingers resuming their light massage and Stacie is lulled back into her swirling thoughts.  

“Okay,” Aubrey says, completely unaware of the turmoil in Stacie. “Do you want breakfast?”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> drop me your comments below bc they make me happy and then I'll write more <3


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Cassandra, this is Aubrey Posen. You’ve met Stacie already, this is her…” Zach trails off, always unsure of how to properly title Aubrey, knows that relegating her simply to ‘roommate’ doesn’t quite cover the relationship between the two and instead he’s caught completely by surprise when Aubrey fills in the details for him. 
> 
> “I’m her wife.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we have officially shifted into second gear, my friends.  
> I'm so sorry for the wait (the whole point of circus AU was to alternate the chapters with this fic but, well, that one kinda took over) but I hope this chapter makes up for it!

Zach turns to look at his feet while he goes up the stairs, intent on showing their new hire the upstairs offices and workspaces when he notices the open office door from across the hallway and frowns. He knows Stacie’s out so he’s surprised to see her door ajar and he guides the woman by his side around until they make it to Stacie’s office, his concern dropping immediately at the sight of Aubrey sitting at Stacie’s desk, leaning back in her chair and typing away at her phone.  

“Hey, Aubrey!” he says with a wide smile. “What are you doing here?”  

“Zach,” she says with a smile of her own, tossing her cellphone onto the desk and standing up to round it, the two exchanging a quick hug. “I’m here to take Stacie to lunch.”  

“Her meetings are running super late,” he says with a small grimace but Aubrey doesn’t seem surprised by it, gesturing to her phone.  

“She was just apologising for being late,” Aubrey explains. “How’ve you been? How’s Norah? And the twins? How was your anniversary?”  

“It was great—I wanted to thank you for helping watch the twins, Stace told me you four had fun.”  

Aubrey waves away his thanks. “It was no trouble, we had a blast.”  

“And Norah’s great, and the twins are… well, you know. They now have opinions about everything. It’s a daily struggle,” Zach gives, his voice absolutely pitiful.  

“Opinions?”  

“Like, about pasta. This week they announced that they don’t like pasta shells anymore, only pasta _bows_. I don’t know how to explain to them that it’s the same thing. It’s the same thing! They don’t care about shape when it’s chocolate, do they?”  

Aubrey has to clamp a hand over her mouth to stop herself from bursting into laughter but it’s enough to snap Zach out of his tirade, his shoulders slumping as he sighs deeply.  

“I’m sure you’ll survive,” Aubrey finally manages with a straight face.  

“Pray for me.”  

Aubrey laughs at that and Zach joins her, a few lighthearted chuckles falling from his lips. He’s about to say more when someone clears their throat behind him and he’s suddenly reminded of what he’d been doing before getting distracted.  

“Oh!” He turns to the woman hovering awkwardly near the doorway, gesturing her over. “Aubrey, this is our new team member, Cassandra Kwan. She’s our new programme analyst,” Zach says and Aubrey’s eyes widen with recognition.  

“I’ve heard great things!” She extends her hand and the woman takes it, shaking it with a surprised look.  

“Cassandra, this is Aubrey Posen. You’ve met Stacie already, this is her…” He trails off, always unsure of how to properly title Aubrey, knows that relegating her simply to ‘roommate’ doesn’t quite cover the relationship between the two and instead he’s caught completely by surprise when Aubrey fills in the details for him.  

“I’m her wife.”  

Zach can appreciate the standard template small talk of introductions and the moment of reprieve it gives him to gather himself.  

“It’s really nice to meet you,” Cassandra says with a smile and Aubrey returns the sentiment.  

He’s not entirely recovered from being blindsided by that news but he thinks he’s hiding it a lot better than before when he turns to Cassandra and with a neutral, slightly chipper voice says, “Can I catch up with you in your office in a bit? I just need to talk to Aubrey real quick.”  

“Yeah, no problem,” Cassandra says, bidding Aubrey goodbye and once she’s gone, it takes all of Zach’s control not to close the office door behind her, not wanting to spook Aubrey into seeing right through what is undoubtedly going to be a badly veiled attempt at light-hearted chit chat.  

“Hey, when did you and Stacie get married?” he asks, tilting his head with a small smile.  

Aubrey’s brow furrows almost imperceptibly and she doesn’t answer immediately and Zach feels like kicking himself.  

“A while ago. It was kinda spur of the moment,” Aubrey says, her smile staying perfectly placid but her eyes seem to close off.  

“I didn’t even know you were engaged,” Zach says with a forced chuckle and Aubrey really frowns then.  

“I thought Stacie told you,” she says softly. “I’m sorry we didn’t invite you, we didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. We just went to city hall.”  

“Oh, no, it’s not that,” Zach says immediately, waving away Aubrey’s apparent apology even though the ambiguity of her words isn’t lost on him.  

“Then what is it?” Aubrey asks, getting right to the heart of the matter and Zach flounders under her sharp gaze.  

He’s mercifully saved by the cheery exclamation from the doorway, followed by a, “Well if it isn’t two of my favourite people.”  

“I hear congratulations are in order,” Zach says, turning to look at Stacie and matching her upbeat demeanour.  

She comes to a stop next to them, her smile losing some of its brilliance when she looks between the two and sees Aubrey staring at the side of Zach’s head.  

“Oh, yeah, I’ve been meaning to tell you but we’ve been crazy busy and I haven’t had a minute,” Stacie explains, turning back to look at Zach with a sheepish smile that he immediately dismissed with a shake of the head.  

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “I’ll leave you to it. It was nice seeing you again, Aubrey,” he says, twisting to face the blonde and missing the way she immediately schools her features.  

“Always a pleasure, Zach,” Aubrey drawls.  

“And, Stace,” he says when he’s standing in the doorway, ready to leave. “We have a meeting tomorrow with our lawyer.”  

“Anything serious?” Stacie asks with a frown.  

“Kind of, but I’ll tell you about it later,” he says with a wry smile and when she thanks him and bids him goodbye, he just lifts his hand in a wave before disappearing around the doorway.  

“What was that all about?” Stacie asks as soon as they’re alone.  

“What was what?” Aubrey replies, twisting to grab her phone from Stacie’s desk and Stacie knows her well enough to recognise the avoidance for what it is. 

“Don’t play coy with me,” Stacie says. “It was weird when I came in.”  

“I don’t know, he was being weird. I think he’s upset you didn’t tell him we got married,” Aubrey comments with a shrug, trying for a light tone as she checks her messages but then Stacie slides her hand over Aubrey’s screen to cover it, all but demanding the woman’s attention.  

“Aubrey.”  

“Why didn’t you tell him we got married?”  

“Like I said, I’ve just been waiting for the right time,” Stacie tries to say, tries to sound sincere about it and hates that she’s trapped herself into a proverbial corner by stepping closer to Aubrey because it means the woman sees right through her, and immediately.  

“That’s bullshit.”  

Stacie doesn’t say anything to that, even as Aubrey watches her with narrowed eyes as if looking for something. She must not find what she’s looking for because she sighs and drops her hand, the one holding her phone, and then steps around Stacie.  

“Whatever, don’t tell me,” she says softly and Stacie’s shocked at Aubrey’s resigned tone. “I met Cassandra, she seems as great as you said.”  

“Yeah, she is,” Stacie says distractedly, watching as Aubrey reaches for her purse and holds her phone in a vice-like grip. “Are you leaving?”  

“I need to get back to the office,” Aubrey says, avoids Stacie’s eyes.  

“I thought you were taking me to lunch?”  

Aubrey pointedly glances at her watch. “I have work to do. I’ll see you at home later.”  

She steps closer and reaches out to hold Stacie in place as she leans in and brushes her lips against Stacie’s cheek in a quick kiss. The move is familiar but Stacie still feels a flash of confused annoyance flare up inside her at how distant Aubrey’s suddenly being.  

“Bye,” she says softly and she’s gone before Stacie can even respond, stood in the middle of her office frowning at the empty doorway.  

 

* * *

 

Hours later and Aubrey’s weird avoidance has bloomed into a mixture of guilt and annoyance and Stacie almost feels bad for having to stay at the office until late and unintentionally giving the impression that she’s avoiding Aubrey back home.  

She twirls her keys around her index finger absentmindedly as she pulls her office door closed behind her and doesn’t notice that Zach’s office door is still ajar and his lights still on until she hears a call of her name.  

“Hey,” he says, already up and out of his chair. “Wait a sec!”  

“No,” Stacie moans and then gives a long, suffering sigh, turning to look at Zach as he flies out of his office.  

“I need to talk to you,” he says.  

“I have had the longest day and I just want to go home,” Stacie begs, frustration bubbling up inside her and she knows it’s not his fault so she doesn’t want him to get the brunt of her annoyance. “Can it wait until tomorrow morning?”  

“It’s important,” Zach says and Stacie sighs again, shoulder slumping.  

“Okay.”  

She follows him back into his office and frowns when he closes the door behind them even though the place is deserted.  

If he’s going to close the door, she’s going to get comfortable, she rationalises, so she drops down to the chair in front of his desk with a huff, sliding down so she can lean her head against the back of the honestly way too comfortable chair.  

“You look terrible,” Zach comments as he sits as well, choosing the chair next to Stacie instead of his own behind the desk.  

“Thanks, man.” She shoots him a soft glare and he holds up his hands innocently.  

“What happened today?”  

“You didn’t pull me in here at eight pm for a pow-wow about my day,” Stacie mutters with her eyes closed but when there’s no answer she continues. “I literally had to hose down the turtle teams’ large incubator. Which reminds me, we need to get a new large incubator.”  

“Turtle team?”  

“Blue Shell Bio,” Stacie explains and when she hears Zach hum in understanding. “But seriously, what’s so important that I can’t go home?”  

“It’s… kinda about that,” Zach mutters and Stacie finally opens her eyes and twists her head to look at him with a frown.  

“Remember the partnership offer we keep getting from Omega?”  

She chalks it up to being tired because the name doesn’t ring any bells.  

Zach chuckles, can see the cogs working in Stacie’s brain and puts her out of her suffering. “Omega Holdings. They keep sending us an offer and we keep saying no? I showed you the one we got two months ago. Blue and purple folder.”  

“The ones who want to be sole investors in exchange for primary access to research and insight into our project recruitment?”  

“Yeah,” Zach says with a sigh as he runs a hand through his hair and Stacie has the stray thought that his hair is no more and no less dishevelled than before which means it’s not the first time he’s done it.  

“What about them?”  

“Do you know who owns Omega Holdings?”  

“Should I?” Stacie asks, trying not to sound too exasperated.  

“Aubrey Posen’s father.”  

She sits up sharply at that, suddenly alert with the new information. “What?!”  

“Yeah.”  

“And you’re only bringing this up _now_?” Zach shoots her a defiant look at that. “I’ve been living with Aubrey for four years and you’re just telling me this now?”  

“They’ve only had their eye on us for two years, and it wasn’t an issue then.”  

“So why is it an issue now?”  

“Because you always said you were just roommates but now you’re apparently married to the future CEO of a company that’s actively trying to get a monopoly on the tech being developed here,” Zach exclaims.  

“Why does the situation change if we’re married?” Stacie asks, affronted by his words and too tired to think straight.  

“Because it’s Aubrey Posen!”  

“So what?!”  

“So, she’s a corporate shark and I wouldn’t put it past her to use—”  

Stacie puts up her hand sharply, effectively stopping Zach from finishing his sentence and levelling a heavy glare at him.  

“Up until today, you seemed to be pretty friendly with her and that is my _wife_  you’re talking about so I recommend you be very careful about how you choose to end that sentence.”  

Zach takes a beat to reconfigure his words and take a deep breath and it’s all the time Stacie needs to stand up and grab her bag from where she’d unceremoniously dropped it next to her chair.  

“That’s what I thought,” she says lowly. “I’m gonna go home and we can try this whole thing again tomorrow.”  

“Look, Stace, as your friend, I’m just worried,” Zach cuts in before she has a chance to leave, holds his hands up in an attempt to defuse the tension in the room.  

“About what?”  

“That you’re being taken advantage of,” Zach says almost hesitantly and Stacie breathes out sharply, disbelief clear.  

“Are you fucking kidding me right now, Zach?”  

“I’m just worried about her involvement in this… thing. You don’t know how she is.”  

“I’ve known her for thirteen years, I think I have a better idea than you do,” Stacie snaps back and Zach has the good sense not to rise to the bait.  

“You handle the science and I handle the business, that’s always been our deal. I’m just worried, it’s my job to be worried. I don’t want things to go sour if Omega steps up their game. I’m just looking out for us.”  

Stacie sighs, fingers toying with the tiny ravioli keychain Aubrey had gotten her for her birthday a few years ago and she reconsiders Zach’s words and where he’s coming from. “My marriage isn’t going to interfere with our company, Zach.”  

“And that’s something you can guarantee?” he asks carefully and she hates that she doesn’t have a good response to that and that she can’t promise it either way.  

“What do you want me to do?” she asks dejectedly. “Do you want me to resign?”  

“No!” Zach says immediately and that’s a reassurance, at the very least. “I definitely don’t want that. I just want you to be careful. Your _wife’s_  company is trying to eat us, I can’t imagine that makes things easy at home.”  

“Don’t worry about my home life.” She takes another deep breath, letting it out loudly as she adjusts the strap of her bag over her shoulder and then gestures vaguely to the door. “Can I go now?”  

“Are we cool?”  

She gives a mirthless chuckle at that, shaking her head softly as she turns away.  

“Ask me again tomorrow.”  

“Stace, come on.” 

“No, you know what, _Zach_?” Stacie says, twisting back, hand on the doorjamb as she levels him with a tired look. “Just, go home and tuck in your twins. You know, the ones you let my ‘corporate shark wife’ babysit when you need a night off. I’ll see you tomorrow.”  

He accepts the dismissal for what it is and doesn’t try to push any more and Stacie’s grateful for it as she finally leaves.  

The drive home feels shorter than usual and when she parks in her spot in front of the house, the building seems almost looming.  

It’s hard not to let Zach’s words get to her, and coupled with Aubrey’s odd behaviour earlier, she’s dreading going inside and facing whatever’s there so she sits in her car for just a little bit longer, killing the engine and resting her forehead against the steering wheel with her eyes closed.  

The problem with that is that the longer she sits there, the longer Zach’s incredibly unexpected accusation has time to fester and take hold in Stacie’s brain and she uses it to try and justify the way Aubrey had all but fled from her office instead of taking her out to lunch.  

The doubt starts seeping in and her stomach twists as the seemingly impossible scenario grows in merit and the thought that her burgeoning feelings for Aubrey may be the result of a fucked up ploy to exploit her friendship and get a hold of her company makes her want to throw up.  

It seems almost too anticlimactic then that once she finally manages to drag herself out of her car and up the steps and past the threshold of her home that all the lights are out and nobody seems to be home. A quick glance at the clock hanging in the living room confirms that it is indeed as late as Stacie thinks it is, and yet Aubrey is very clearly not home yet.  

Stacie knows that if she’d been home and had left again, she’d have left the kitchen light on the way she always does, without thinking about it, and that she would have left her work bag on the chair at their dining table.  

All the tension seeps out of her at the realisation that Aubrey’s avoiding her and she drops to the couch listlessly, not even bothering to take off her shoes in the process and stares up at the ceiling.  

 

* * *

 

She frowns when she unlocks the front door and finds all the lights are off, had seen Stacie’s car in the driveway and knows that there’s no way Stacie isn’t home. Even though the thought that Stacie might have already gone upstairs and is not up for a conversation sets the cowardice in Aubrey a little at ease, she doesn’t actually believe she’s going to get off that easily.  

Still, she keeps quiet as she moves around, doesn’t need the lights to navigate her own home as she kicks off her shoes and drops her bag on a chair by the dining table. She considers seeking out Stacie before rerouting to the kitchen, her stomach turning with hunger and she realises that she hasn’t had anything to eat since breakfast.  

“We need to talk.”  

Aubrey jumps about a foot in the air, a scream falling from her lips as she turns to face the direction the voice had come from.  

“It’s just me,” Stacie says but she’s concealed by the darkness and by the fact that besides speaking, she hasn’t moved a muscle.  

Aubrey’s fingers shake as she reaches out to turn on a light, bathing them in a warm yellow glow.  

“Jesus Christ, Stacie, you scared the shit out of me,” she says, pressing a hand against her chest to calm her racing heart.  

“Sorry.”  

“Why are you just laying in the dark?” Aubrey asks, eyes raking down Stacie’s body to look for any visible indicators that she’s not alright.  

“It wasn’t dark when I laid down,” Stacie gives with a casual shrug, her eyes still firmly on the ceiling and Aubrey frowns at how lacklustre the move is.  

“Is everything okay?” she asks softly, already knowing the answer but not sure how else to start this conversation.  

Still, when Stacie speaks she’s taken completely for a loop as to the reason.  

“Did you trick me into marrying you so that I’d be in a compromised negotiating position the next time your company comes to mine with an acquisition offer disguised as a partnership deal?”  

The words are spoken plainly with zero hint of any emotion either way and yet they still make Aubrey feel like she’s been punched in the gut.  

“What?” she breathes. “What are you talking about?”  

“Omega Holdings has been boxing us into a corner and choking out the funding for our projects to force us into a deal with them for almost two years and Omega Holdings is a subsidiary of Posen Group, a company of which you are a C-level executive, so I guess I’m asking if you’re involved in this and if you knew about it before we got married.”  

“No,” Aubrey says despite still processing the words and the full extent of the insinuation behind them. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”  

That finally drags Stacie’s eyes away from the ceiling as she looks at Aubrey with hardened eyes, gauging her trust in the words and apparently coming up short and challenging twitch of Stacie’s eyebrow makes Aubrey’s arms itch with the need to cross them over her chest protectively.  

“How is that possible?” she asks curtly.  

“What?”  

“You are in line to be the next CEO. I thought that meant you had oversight on everything. So how is it possible that you don’t know about Omega’s relentless offers?”  

Stacie’s right, _of course_ she’s right, and Aubrey flounders as she mentally rifles through the mountain of emails and paperwork she reads through every day to see if anything informing her of a potential partnership deal had crossed her desk. She comes up woefully short but it’s the certainty of the fact that if she’d ever seen or heard Stacie’s company name anywhere at work it would have set off warning bells in her head that makes her shake her head.  

“I don’t know,” she says, shaking her head with a frown because if Omega had indeed been actively courting Stacie’s company, by all accounts she _should_  have known about it.  

There is no way that one of their biggest subsidiaries — and a holding company at that — should have been making any offers without her knowledge and a kernel of suspicion embeds itself in her and makes its way to the top of her to-do list.  

Stacie’s disbelieving scoff snaps her back to the conversation at hand and when she looks at Stacie, the expression she finds there makes something coil uncomfortably in her gut.  

“Stacie, I had no idea,” she implores even though she can see that the words don’t have the intended effect.  

“I find that hard to believe,” Stacie says lowly as she finally sits up, planting both feet on the ground and Aubrey hates how well she knows the woman and knows that she does it to make herself feel more grounded in the face of an impending argument.  

“You find it hard to believe that I didn’t trick you into marrying me to get your company?” she challenges and Stacie’s reticence cuts deep and Aubrey fights against the feeling of her throat closing up, her hurt easily turning to anger. “ _That’s_ how little you think of me?”  

“I didn’t want to believe it at first, but the longer I think about it, the more it starts to make sense.”  

“This makes _no_  sense,” Aubrey says with a shake of the head as she takes a step back, considering the evidence that’s being stacked up against her. She remembers Stacie offhandedly telling her about a partnership offer a year ago, and how she and Zach had barely had to glance at the brief before firmly turning it down, and Aubrey knows that the company had persisted and that she and Zach hadn’t wavered on their decision, so to hear it all circling back to her when she doesn’t even know the terms of the deal is both surprising and insulting. “I’m not involved in this deal. Hell, I didn’t even know Omega was the one making you that offer.”  

“And how convenient is that?”  

Her eyebrows shoot up at the words, skin prickling with warmth as she tries to contain her disbelief and outrage at the insinuation, but more than anything she feels hurt and blindsided, not necessarily by Stacie’s sharp words but by her own apparently foolish belief that she’d always be given the benefit of the doubt by the most important person in her life.  

This whole day is shaping up to be a massive reality check in all things Stacie Conrad for her and she hates feeling so off-kilter and so lost.  

She’s always been good at weaponising her hurt, though, so she swallows down the choking sensation in her throat and manages to keep her voice level and matches the iciness of Stacie’s words as she says, “I don’t know how many different ways I need to tell you that I have nothing to do with this since you don’t seem to think I’m telling the truth anyway so this whole conversation is pointless.”  

A sufficiently chastised look crosses Stacie’s face as her shoulders slump, her elbows dropping to her knees and her fingertips rubbing her temples but Aubrey takes no pleasure in it, her own appetite effectively lost again, and she just shakes her head and turns to go.  

Going up the stairs feels heavier than usual and Aubrey’s not stupid enough to believe that it has anything to do with her body.  

She goes through the motions of taking off her jewelry and undressing and shedding the layer of baggage that she carries with her every day and when she closes the bathroom door behind her for a shower, her hand hesitates over the handle.  

Her chest feels tight with bottled up tension and this shouldn’t be as big a deal as it is, but when her fingers deftly lock the bathroom door, she almost can’t bear to look at the lock, twisting away to step into the shower and under the scalding stream of water.  

The water burns her skin and it’s a welcome feeling as she closes her eyes and tries to find some semblance of stability in her turmoil. When she’d gone back to the office after not having lunch, she’d buried herself in work to avoid addressing the unsettled feeling that had lodged itself into her heart when she’d found out that Zach had no idea she and Stacie had gotten married and the swirling confusion of why exactly that was.  

A part of her wishes she could go back to the peace of this morning when they’d both been in a rush to get out the door, as every morning, with Stacie practically shoving a sandwich into Aubrey’s hands in an effort to make sure she fills her stomach with something other than coffee and Aubrey reminding Stacie not to forget the pile of application forms she’d brought home with her the day before that had been unceremoniously abandoned on the dining table.  

“Thank you,” Aubrey had said, holding up the brown bag containing her lovingly-made sandwich and kissing Stacie’s cheek quickly while the brunette was fighting the zipper of her coat. “Lunch later?”  

“Yeah, come pick me up?” Stacie had said, lifting her head with a quick smile thrown Aubrey’s way as she had grabbed her keys off the hook and practically shoved Aubrey out the front door.  

“Of course, I’ll text you,” Aubrey had replied, rapidly rushing down the steps.  

“Drive safe! Love you!” Stacie had called out while locking the front door behind her. 

“Love you too,” she’d said back and gotten settled in her car, watching until Stacie got into her own vehicle before finally driving away with a quick wriggle of her fingers.  

Her day going so spectacularly off the rails hadn’t been in the plan and she knows that it’s just a fight and that they’ve had fights before and that in the grand scheme of things, this won’t even matter all that much but it still hurts and she’s still wounded by Stacie’s apparent firm belief that she’d choose to test the boundaries of their friendship for the sake of a deal.  

It makes her feel like she’s living with a stranger and it’s an entirely unwelcome feeling because rationally, she knows that’s not true but she just can’t reconcile the Stacie she’d faced downstairs with the woman she’s been friends with for over a decade, the person who had always been on her side no matter what, who’s seen her at her lowest and most broken and still loved her and championed for her and refused to let cunning actions take away her humanity; the person who married her without a moment’s hesitation to help her attain a lifelong goal.  

The person who now apparently believed that it was all a ruse and that she could so easily manipulate their friendship for her sole gain.  

Aubrey presses her palms against the tiled wall of the shower as she circles back to that point, head hanging low as the water beats down her back in a soothing rhythm that doesn’t lessen the tension in her back a bit.  

The whole thing is a mess and she has her suspicions as to why this deal may have been kept from her but there’s nothing she can do about it now and there’s no setting Stacie at ease until she does so she’s stuck, caught in the proverbial eye of the storm and useless in every direction but she loathes the idea of going to bed without clearing this up so she slowly pushes herself to finish her shower and go seek out Stacie.  

Her face is scrubbed clean of any makeup, hair piled atop her head and she’s dressed in her comfiest pair of sweatpants as she goes down the stairs to find Stacie sitting in the exact same spot she left her.  

Her shoes have been kicked off but lay discarded at the end of the couch and Aubrey knows it’s only because they don’t like having shoes on the couch and Stacie’s curled her feet under her body.  

Stacie looks up when she hears her and she doesn’t say anything but she does scoot to the side, freeing up Aubrey’s spot and it’s a temporary truce, if anything, so she doesn’t think twice about dropping to the couch next to Stacie.  

“Why were you being so weird earlier?” Stacie says after a long silence, her voice soft and careful. “If it wasn’t because of this?”  

“I wasn’t being weird,” Aubrey counters immediately, a lie that Stacie easily sees through.  

“Yes, you were. We were supposed to have lunch together and you totally bailed and were acting weird.”  

“Why didn’t you tell Zach we got married?” she says, the words slipping out before she can stop them. In the moment she’d been surprised by how deeply that had cut her and she can’t quite pinpoint why and she hadn’t wanted to bring it up now but Stacie had clearly conflated her avoidance with guilt and that’s something that she can set right, at the very least.  

“That’s what that was about?” Stacie asks, her surprise clear as she finally turns to look at Aubrey with a frown and a piercing look and Aubrey just shrugs and nods. “The time just wasn’t right.”  

They know each other too well to lie to each other, and they still do it and Aubrey wonders why that is but she lets Stacie get away with it for the time being, choosing to pick apart her pathetic reasoning instead of outright calling her out on her lie.  

“You see him every day.”  

“Yeah, but that’s at work.”  

“You couldn’t find ten minutes to take him aside and tell him?”  

“We are right in the middle of project pitches, you know how crazy it gets.”  

"We’ve been married for almost three months.”  

Her mouth audibly snaps shut at that and where Aubrey would usually revel in getting the upper hand, there’s no satisfaction in it with Stacie.  

“Did you not tell him because you apparently think that we got married so I could get your company?”  

“No,” Stacie says immediately. “I only found out about that today after I told him.”  

“Then why?” she asks, looking sideways at Stacie just in time to see her look away and stare at the wall opposite blankly, eyebrows knitting together as she tries to formulate a response and Aubrey feels like she can’t breathe with the wait.  

She doesn’t understand why this is so important to her, why it matters so much that Stacie hadn’t told her business partner and close friend about their change in marital status but she does know that it had somehow made her feel almost expendable.  

“I don’t know,” Stacie finally says and after that long pause to collect her thoughts, it’s not the answer Aubrey had expected and she says as much. “I don’t know,” Stacie repeats more tensely, her shoulders curving in and her back bowing as if she’s being weighed down. “I guess after the whole thing with Pen, I’ve just been hesitant and—”  

“After what thing?”  

“What?” Stacie asks suddenly, a little breathlessly as she looks at Aubrey in alarm.  

“What thing with Pen?” Aubrey repeats and the way Stacie’s gaze skitters away from her isn’t enough to conceal the flash of guilt and panic. She’s not sure whether to feel better because there seems to be a valid reason as to why Stacie hadn’t told Zach, or worse because that reason has something to do with Penelope. “Stacie, what happened with Penny?”  

“She didn’t take it well,” is all she says which is barely an answer or explanation but is enough to let that coil in her gut twist tighter.  

“Oh.”  

“Yeah.”  

“I didn’t see that one coming.”  

“I didn’t either,” Stacie admits softly.  

“Why didn’t you tell me?”  

“Why were you being weird earlier?” she counters with a question of her own and Aubrey chuckles softly at the way Stacie’s words both dodge her question and call her out for not answering before. “I didn’t want you to worry about it,” Stacie finally says. “I love Pen but sometimes she forgets that not everybody is as lucky as she is, and her reaction had nothing to do with you so I didn’t want to put that on you.”  

Aubrey doesn’t feel like she’s getting the whole story, and the fact that it even comes months after the fact is enough to signal that there’s more to it, but she’s not sure she’s prepared to hear the rest if Stacie wants to keep it to herself so she doesn’t prod for more.  

“Even though it’s just a convenience thing, it still hurts that you didn’t tell one of your closest friends that we got married,” Aubrey confesses.  

“Why?”  

“I don’t know,” she says and that’s the God’s honest truth.  

“I know marriage is a big thing but ours hasn’t changed anything.”  

“I know that,” Aubrey says lightly, nodding as she keeps her head ducked and her eyes on her lap.  

“So if it’s just a pretend marriage, why does it matter that much?” Stacie asks carefully.  

“I don’t know,” Aubrey says as she tries to keep the unexpected prickle of tears at bay. “I don’t know, it just…” She can feel Stacie’s eyes on her so she just shrugs, lifts her head to meet her stare and shoots her a wry smile. They’ve only ever had two rules when fighting, the first and obvious one being not to play dirty and the second one being that they didn’t avoid it, to not let problems fester and become a bigger issue and to talk out anything that might be bothering them.  

It had stemmed from their Bella days when they’d had arguments and would hide out from each other in their respective rooms until Chloe’d had to play mediator to small things that had grown in size with the weight of time and neglect and so they’d decided very early on to always be open and honest with each other and so Aubrey knows that the way she’d left earlier warrants an apology.  

“I’m sorry I stormed off.”  

“Okay.”  

“Okay.”  

“I’m sorry about what I insinuated before,” Stacie says after another stretch of silence and Aubrey has to look away from her because if she keeps looking at Stacie, she might just give in to the overwhelming need to cry.  

“I would never do that to you, by the way. I’d never use you like that. Ever,” she says and just the fact that she has to say the words make her sick to her stomach. 

“I know,” Stacie says and she sounds remorseful but Aubrey still scoffs.  

“Apparently you don’t.”  

“I’m sorry.”  

“It’s okay.”  

“Aubrey…”  

“Seriously, it’s okay.”  

“You say that, but I don’t think you actually mean it,” Stacie says softly, clearly not trying to start a fight but not quite letting Aubrey off the hook either.  

“I mean it. I’m not mad, I’m just… informed.”  

“How do I fix this?” Stacie asks, her voice thick.  

“There’s nothing to fix,” Aubrey replies and she means it but the noise Stacie makes indicates a belief to the contrary. “I mean it, we’re okay. It’s nothing a good night’s sleep won’t mend.”  

Stacie’s eyes flicker to the clock. “If you say so.”  

“I do,” she says with a small smile and the tension in Stacie’s shoulders seems to lessen at that.  

“And what are we going to do about our companies?” she asks almost reluctantly.  

“Right now, nothing,” Aubrey says. “I need to go figure out why this was kept from me.”  

“And I need to figure out how our marriage affects this.”  

“Both things that can’t be dealt with at 11 pm.”  

Stacie laughs softly and when Aubrey looks at her, she can see the bone-weary exhaustion take a hold of her and even though she can’t completely hide away the uncomfortable chasm inside her, she manages to push it down enough to manage a genuine smile as she gets up off the couch.  

“Come on.”  

Her body moves on autopilot when she holds out her hand as an offer to Stacie and there’s a pregnant pause in the air as they both stare at the outstretched hand but before that slow sinking feeling can return and Aubrey can even think about pulling back her hand, Stacie’s slid her palm across Aubrey and curls her fingers, squeezing softly and getting off the couch with a low groan.  

They don’t let go even when they ascend the stairs and Aubrey can see the worry still so clearly in Stacie’s eyes when they stop upstairs. She squeezes her hand in what she hopes is a reassuring gesture despite not feeling it herself at all and the ghost of a smile flickers across Stacie’s face.  

“Good night, Stace.”  

Aubrey’s hand slips out of hers moments before Stacie leans in and quickly kisses her cheek.  

“Good night, Aubrey.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are love and also make me write faster! (100% science-backed facts)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> enjoy :)

Aubrey steps into the hallway, appreciating the brief reprieve and lowered hum of conversation and she’s pulling her phone from her pocket when the doorbell rings.  

Rob, whose only tasks of the night are to stay out of his own kitchen and open the front door, comes flying into the hallway, wine sloshing in his glass precariously close to the rim and Aubrey stifles a laugh when he pauses and takes a breath to compose himself before opening the door.  

She pockets her phone when she sees Stacie there, leans against the wall to watch the two friends greet each other.  

“Stacie! We were starting to wonder if you’d been taken hostage by one of your venture capitalist friends!” Rob teases and Stacie gives him a weak smile that gives away how tired she actually is.  

“Close, it was one of my lawyers,” she throws back and Rob grimaces, rubs her back as he pulls her into a tight hug.  

“Oh, that sounds _awful_. Here, do you want some wine? Have mine,” Rob offers but Stacie’s already shaking her head and pushing the glass away.  

“I might just fall asleep on the spot if I have red right now,” she says and Rob laughs. “Plus, I think I have to drive since she’s already started,” Stacie adds, nudging her head towards Aubrey and catching her by surprise since.  

She hadn’t thought that Stacie noticed her watching them, or the wineglass held in her hand, but she puts on a coy smile as Rob turns to her.  

“What are you doing here, creeper?” Rob tuts and Aubrey laughs as she steps closer.  

“I wouldn’t dare infringe on your duties,” Aubrey says, holding up one hand in a gesture of innocence. “I came out here to call Stacie.”  

“Summoned, like the devil,” Rob teases, elbowing Stacie softly, turning to look at her when he doesn’t get a response. He rolls his eyes when he sees how Stacie hasn’t taken her eyes off Aubrey since addressing her. “Ignored, just like that,” he mutters under his breath but Aubrey hears him and chuckles softly, opening her mouth to say something. He waves his hand dismissively, cradles his glass of wine against his chest as he steps away. “I’ll let you say hi to your _wife_  in private.”  

Stacie rolls her eyes at that and Aubrey throws him a melodic, “Thank you, Robert!”  

He says something under his breath that neither of them catches but Stacie laughs softly and that brings Aubrey’s attention to her.  

“Hey.”  

“Hi,” Stacie murmurs and Aubrey’s barely put down her wineglass on a nearby table before Stacie wraps her arms around Aubrey and slumps against her, face falling into the crook of her neck.  

“Are you okay?” Aubrey asks in concern, one hand wrapping around the woman as the other one strokes over her hair soothingly.  

“Tired.”  

“Did you just come from the office?” Aubrey asks even though she already knows the answer, frowns when Stacie confirms it by nodding. “Why were you there so late?”  

“Work.”  

“Want to talk about it?”  

“We have to go—” She doesn’t finish her sentence, starts pulling away as she motions vaguely to the living room where the sounds of laughter and conversation can clearly be heard.  

“That can wait. Stacie?” she urges, hands on Stacie’s hips as the woman pulls away with a conflicted look, teeth worrying her lower lip.  

“I can’t talk to you about it,” Stacie says softly, avoiding Aubrey’s eyes as she looks down at the floor and sighs deeply.  

“What?” Why not?”  

“Because my lawyer said so.”  

Aubrey makes a strangled sound of confusion that has Stacie looking up, guilt settling heavily in her gut when she sees the hurt clearly in Aubrey’s eyes even though she tries hard to hide it with a frown and the past few days have been a test in the limits of how much she can hurt Aubrey, apparently.  

“I can’t talk to you about it for legal reasons because of where you work and where I work,” Stacie explains and she’s looking at Aubrey so she sees the information sink in, the realisation, sees how Aubrey inhales and holds her breath, unsure of how to respond.  

Aubrey’s mouth opens to answer but nothing comes out and her eyebrows knit together then as she tries to figure out her words and it hurts to watch. It sucks to have to see Aubrey flounder for an answer, trying to find neutral ground and almost desperately come up short.  

“It’s okay,” Stacie finally says, can’t take it anymore and Aubrey looks grateful even if her eyes aren’t quite as alive as they’d been before.  

“I’m sorry,” Aubrey whispers.  

“No, this isn’t your fault,” Stacie replies. “ _I’m_ sorry.”  

She gives Aubrey a small smile that feels more sad than anything, fingers reaching up to brush some hair away from Aubrey’s forehead and lingering there, needing the anchor as Aubrey swallows thickly.  

“Is it going to be okay?”  

“I don’t know,” Stacie says, shrugs, and channeling Aubrey from last night, she plasters on a smile and lets her thumb softly tug at Aubrey’s cheek to pull the corner of her mouth up into a smile. “But this isn’t a problem for us to deal with right now.”  

Her words and touch seem to do the trick and she feels the facial muscles under her fingers twitch as Aubrey smiles.  

She looks like she desperately wants to ask more but she holds back, breaks their eye contact to glance in the direction of the living room. “Are you hungry?”  

“Starving,” Stacie says, and this time when she smiles, it’s genuine and Aubrey chuckles softly.  

“Here,” Aubrey says as she reaches for her glass of white wine and offers it to Stacie.  

“No thanks.”  

“Sounds like you need it,” Aubrey explains. “I’ll drive us home.”  

“How much have you already had?”  

“This is my first glass,” she says with a small smile and they both know that Stacie’s intense scrutinous look is more for show than anything, and she doesn’t hold out for long before breaking into a smile and finally curling her fingers around the glass to take it from Aubrey. “Come on, they were just sitting down when you got here.”  

“Thanks,” Stacie murmurs, sipping from the glass. Aubrey turns to go so Stacie quickly reaches out, fingers curling into Aubrey’s elbow and stopping her from moving too far away and Aubrey glances over her shoulder, question clear. “I’m sorry,” Stacie says softly and Aubrey shakes her head with a wry smile.  

“It’s okay,” she says but her smile doesn’t reach her eyes and Stacie can see how hard she’s trying to conceal the pain.  

Aubrey falters at Stacie’s deep frown, turns back enough to shoot her an encouraging smile, twists her arm out of Stacie’s gentle hold to slide her hand down to grasp Stacie’s, squeezing softly.  

“Stace—”  

“About yesterday,” she interrupts, the shame and remorse welling up inside her again, almost overpowering every other feeling again and last night she’d felt so sick from it that she could barely sleep. She’d lain awake for hours as the guilt had intertwined so easily with the panic of realisation that wanting to kiss your best friend pretty much all the time isn’t exactly platonic behaviour. Still, feelings or not, that’s no excuse for her lashing out and mistrusting Aubrey as horribly as she had yesterday. “I should have believed you the first time around. And I.. god, I’m _so_ sorry.”  

“I know.” Aubrey must realise how harsh her words come out because her shoulders soften at that, head tilting slightly. “It’s okay.”  

A plain lie but Stacie’s in no position to call her out on it, and she has no idea how to begin to make things better between them.  

She knows she’s broken something precious to them, and Aubrey’s eyes close off in a way Stacie hasn’t seen in years, not since she’d so carefully and meticulously and determinedly chiseled at Aubrey’s walls until they all came down one by one and Stacie knows that the guilt she feels is nothing in comparison to how Aubrey must feel. 

Their encyclopaedic knowledge of one another goes both ways though, so Aubrey must be able to see the utter turmoil in her eyes and something in her softens and her hand tugs softly at Stacie’s while giving it a little squeeze.  

“I promise.”  

Stacie makes a soft sound of disbelief but she manages a small smile and the mood shifts back into safer territory as Aubrey arches an eyebrow in challenge.  

“When have my promises ever been broken?”  

“I seem to recall you promising me those yummy cookies from New York and then not delivering,” Stacie says with a cheeky smile and it has the desired effect as Aubrey’s mouth drops open with indignation.  

“That was _one time_.”  

“Sure, uh-huh.”  

“Come eat something because you’re hallucinating,” Aubrey grumbles and uses her hand clasped in Stacie’s to practically yank her along into the living room and towards the dining room where most of their friends are already sitting around the table.  

The group cheers loudly at the sight of Stacie and she smiles widely, the joviality a balm to her tired soul. Aubrey squeezes her hand a final time before letting go to sit down as Stacie makes her way around the long dinner table to say hi to everybody.  

“We saved you side-by-side seats,” Mandy says, leaning across the table.  

“Julian wanted to split you up but we know that’s never a good idea,” her husband Andre provides with a teasing wink that has Aubrey laughing.  

“Plus everybody knows married people _should_  sit next to each other,” Mo chimes in from next to Aubrey, throwing an arm over the back of her seat and Aubrey’s roll of the eyes is exaggerated. “We couldn’t possibly split up the Conrads. Or is it the Posens?”  

“Ugh,” Aubrey groans, poking his exposed side and taking sick pleasure in the way he yelps and swats at her hand.  

“You have it coming for not inviting any of us to your wedding,” Mandy adds in and when Mo holds out his glass, she happily leans over and clinks it with her own in commiseration, taking a sip and smiling at Aubrey over the rim.  

“I’m happy we didn’t have to go,” Andre provides almost distractedly as he glances over the table for the large pitcher of water they usually keep on hand for easy refilling, and he doesn’t notice Mandy and Mo turns to him in bewilderment while Aubrey tilts her head curiously. At the silence, Andre looks up and finds the three intense stares on him, shifts awkwardly and clears his throat and he tries to make himself smaller but that’s impossible with his wide frame and he ends up bumping the side of Mandy’s chair in the process as he clamours for an explanation. “I’m just sayin…”  

“What are you saying, exactly?” Aubrey asks, narrowing her eyes at him and in her peripheral vision she can see Mandy stifle a laugh with her glass of wine.  

“Well—it’s just that you got married at City Hall,” he stammers. He tries to look at Mo for backup but the man just shakes his head and grimaces and Andre looks almost betrayed by it. “I’ve been there and the rooms are all so small and if we all went it would’ve been cramped and y’know tight spaces make me nervous. I didn’t mean that I wouldn’t want to go to your wedding!”  

He tugs at the collar of his sweater and reaches for his glass before remembering that it’s empty and he worriedly glances between Aubrey and Mandy.  

The two women take one look at each other and burst into laughter, Mo joining them as Andre finally realises that he’s being royally screwed with and he leans back in his seat, crossing his arms petulantly even as a smile pulls at his lips.  

“I hate you guys,” he grumbles just as a pair of long arms wind around his shoulders from behind and Stacie pops her head next to his.  

“What are they making fun of you for this time?”  

“It’s not worth repeating,” he mumbles and Stacie giggles as she presses a kiss to his cheek.  

“Hey kitty-cat,” Mandy says when Stacie moves on to hug her. “Why you so late?”  

“Work,” Stacie says simply. 

“Seems you and your wife are perfect for each other,” Mandy teases.  

Stacie groans in response and Mandy laughs, waving Stacie away to let her round the table and settle into the seat next to Aubrey. “Why are you guys suddenly so focused on the marriage thing?”  

“Because it’s hilarious,” Nina chimes in as she sits down at the end of the table near them and Stacie groans.  

“Not you too,” Aubrey says as Mandy offers her a high five.  

“It’s what you get for not inviting us to your wedding,” Nina says.  

“That’s what I said!” Mandy chimes in.  

“It was a Wednesday afternoon, you all have jobs,” Aubrey protests.  

“But weddings are a momentous occasion worth taking the afternoon off for,” Mo adds.  

“Hush, you,” Aubrey threatens as she points a finger at him but he just smirks at her.  

“Lord knows we love a wedding,” Rob says as he sets a pot in the middle of the table and Stacie hadn’t even noticed him approaching but he’d clearly been paying attention to the conversation.  

“What is this—a conspiracy?” Stacie asks, glancing between all of their friends.  

“When we told you two—” Aubrey says with a pointed look to Nina and Mandy.  

“Plus Leia,” Stacie provides.  

“—you couldn’t have laughed harder,” Aubrey says.  

“Well, yeah,” Mandy says. “We thought you were joking at the time.”  

“But once we figured out it was real, we thought you’d at least have a little party or something to celebrate,” Nina adds.  

“But it’s not a real marriage,” Stacie says, slowly, as if she’s explaining a foreign concept to them.  

“It is according to the law,” Mo says and a ripple of laughter goes through the group.  

Mo’s own laugh turns into another yelp as Aubrey sharply pokes his side, just under his ribs at the soft part and he tries to grab at her hand but Aubrey’s too quick and has already poked him a second time.  

“Stacie Conrad!” he manages.  

“I’m not the one poking you,” Stacie says with a shrug.  

“Do something about your wife, would you?” Mo says in a moment of weakness and he’s equally remorseful and delighted when he sees a flash of fire in her eyes and her eyebrows set in determination. 

Before Aubrey can inflict any bodily harm, Julian comes out of the kitchen with a platter of food. “Okay, everybody lay off Aubrey and Stacie.”  

“Thank you,” Stacie murmurs as she sips from her glass.  

“Everybody knows that the only reason you’re all itching for a real wedding is because Rob still hasn’t asked me to marry him.”  

The man at the other end of the table pales as they all horribly fail at masking their titters and scandalised laughs at the direct jab.  

Aubrey and Stacie exchange amused glances but then Julian clears his throat again and draws their attention back to him.  

“Everybody dig in.”  

The chatter over dinner is light and fun and the longer they remain around the table, the more settled Stacie starts to feel about them. With every smile thrown her way and topped up glass of water and shared look and quiet laugh, they mellow out and after they have dessert, Aubrey’s practically leaning into her, their chairs pressed together.  

The combination of the wine and exhaustion is taking its toll and the allure of sleep tugs at her and the arm she has slung over the back of Aubrey’s seat is as much comfort as it is necessary to keep her completely upright.  

She tries to keep up with Aubrey and Mo’s spirited debate about some economic principle but she’s too tired and it very much sounds like a back and forth they’ve had before and are rehashing and will do so for the rest of time so Stacie just perches her chin on Aubrey’s shoulder, smiling when the woman immediately lifts her hand to touch her, fingertips dappling at her cheek with clear affection even as she keeps talking to Mo.  

When his attention is taken away a while later by Rob asking him something, Aubrey twists her head to look at Stacie, their noses almost touching.  

“You wanna go home?” she offers, eyes flickering between Stacie’s.  

She shakes her head. “No, I’m okay.”  

Aubrey doesn’t look like she believes her and her own body betrays her when she feels a yawn bubble up and as much as she tries to suppress it, she can’t and Aubrey gives a soft laugh when Stacie moves away to yawn into her hand.  

“We’ll go home as soon as we start clearing the plates, okay?”  

“No, don’t mind me,” Stacie says, eyes blinking slowly as she shifts closer again, laying her head on Aubrey’s shoulder. “I’ll just be here.”  

“No way, you can’t fall asleep,” Aubrey says sternly, shrugging her shoulder and ignoring Stacie’s whine of protest.  

“I’m just gonna take a little little nap.”  

“Absolutely not,” she says. “Drunk Stacie I can handle. She’s a breeze and highly suggestible. Easily manoeuvrable. But sleepy Stacie is a whole other ballgame.”  

Stacie chuckles before her words really sink in and she’s a little slow on the uptake, eyes opening slowly as she lifts her head.  

“Wait, did you say highly suggestible?”  

“Yes.”  

Aubrey doesn’t look the least bit repentant even after Stacie shoots her an affronted look.  

“It’s true,” she says, choosing to double down on her words and her lips twist with amusement and Stacie’s eyes are drawn to them. “And in any case, if you fall asleep, I’m gonna have to leave you here.” 

“You’d leave me here on Julian’s uncomfortable couch?” Stacie asks with a pathetic pout that Aubrey mockingly copies.  

“I’d get Andre to carry you to their guest room upstairs.”  

“Why not to my car?”  

“Because then I’ll have to leave you in the car when we get home,” Aubrey throws back.  

“You wouldn’t try to lift me into the house?”  

“Nope.” 

“You’d just leave me in the car?”  

“I’d crack a window,” Aubrey says with a laugh and Stacie’s mouth drops open with indignation again.  

“I can’t believe you’d leave me in the car,” Stacie murmurs as she leans back in her own chair and crosses her arms.  

“Your options are staying awake and sleeping in your own bed, or falling asleep and staying here or in the car.”  

Stacie’s silent for a while and Aubrey smiles, reaches for her glass of water and sips from it as she expectantly keeps her eyes on Stacie.  

“I’d lift you into the house.”  

Aubrey laughs into her glass and Stacie’s already feeling insulted before Aubrey’s even spoken. “Just because you can do one pull-up, does not mean you can lift me out of the car and into the house.”  

“Hey now!” Stacie protests and Aubrey pauses with her eyebrows raised, clearly surprised by the flash of fury accompanying the words, but then Stacie’s voice softens and a smile tugs at her lips. “I can do _three_ pull-ups now.”  

Aubrey tries, she really tries, not to laugh and Stacie can’t help but delight in how hard she tries to suppress it but inevitably a low snort makes its way out of her and her hand flies up to cover her mouth as if it’ll physically stop the laughter. Her shoulders shake with the effort and Stacie just watches her with a wide smile of her own, raising her eyebrows almost daring her not to react but then inevitably a few giggles escape.  

“So what’s it gonna be, hm?” Aubrey asks through her laughter.  

“I’ll take ‘sleeping in my own bed for 400, Alex’,” Stacie says.  

“Good choice.”  

 

* * *

 

“Hey!” Aubrey says, expression brightening when she sees Stacie in the lobby and breaking away from the small group she’s with to approach her.  

Stacie immediately looks up from her phone, tucks it into the pocket of her jeans to give Aubrey her full attention and a wide smile. “Hey.”  

“Have you been waiting here long?” Aubrey asks, glancing at the receptionist but Stacie waves away her concerns.  

“No, I just got distracted by a twitter thread Rob sent me,” Stacie explains. “I just got here.”  

Stacie motions to the weekend bag at her feet and Aubrey smiles at her.  

“Thank you so much, you’re a lifesaver.”  

“I know,” Stacie teases, flutters her eyelids bashfully. “And since I know you were planning on going home before having to fly out…”  

Her voice trails off and Aubrey’s eyes go wide.  

“Yes?”  

“There’s also dinner in there.”  

Aubrey gasps delightedly and glances down at the bag. “You _do_ love me.”  

“Of course,” she says bashfully, fluttering her lashes as her voice takes on a syrupy tone. “What do I get for it in return?”  

“My eternal gratitude,” Aubrey teases.  

“And?”  

“My love.”  

“And?” Stacie repeats with an arched eyebrow.  

“What do you want?”  

“Can you bring back those El Fenix pecan pralines I love so much?” Stacie asks immediately as if she’d been waiting for the right time to ask and Aubrey’s smile softens at the eagerness there.  

“Of course,” she says. “I’ll have Jane pick some up. Anything else?”  

“Not that I can think of right now,” Stacie says and Aubrey sighs in fond exasperation, her eyes so warm and Stacie’s grateful to see it.  

Things had been tentative between them since last week and while the dinner party at Julian and Rob’s had certainly helped move things along, the next day when it was just the two of them back at home it seemed like the space between them had been reformed.  

She’d been respectful of Aubrey’s need for space while at the same time desperately craving closeness, her proactive attitude and need to fix everything immediately never did lend well with Aubrey’s need to sit and stew on an issue and come back to the right place in her own time, but she’d held back and slowly it seemed like they were back on solid ground again.  

Apart from constantly apologising and maybe inventing time travel to go back and stop herself from breaching a line that she should never have crossed with Aubrey, Stacie hadn’t known what else to do and the quiet of the house had felt almost stifling.  

A quarterly shareholders meeting back in Dallas meant that Aubrey would be gone for a few days and Stacie had felt almost desperate to fix whatever she could in the time she had before Aubrey needed to leave and when they’d moved around each other that morning in the kitchen, Aubrey looking at her over the edge of her coffee mug and whispering “I’m gonna miss you”, Stacie had finally felt a small weight lift off her chest.  

Aubrey’s constant reassurances that they were going to be okay finally seemed more believable, more an honest sentiment rather than a tiny bandaid to cover a big wound.  

“Aubrey.”  

The sharp voice drags her out of her thoughts and her eyes away from Aubrey and she recognises the voice even before looking at the man, and she has to work very hard to keep her face in neutral territory as her eyes fall on Wyatt, who has stepped closer and seems a little too happy to have interrupted whatever moment they were having.  

“Yes?” Aubrey asks, voice purposefully bored but Stacie knows her well enough to catch the annoyance undercutting her words.  

“We have to go,” he says, squaring back his shoulders as if gearing up for a fight. “Hello Stacie.”  

“Wyatt,” Stacie says dryly, turning back to Aubrey with comically wide eyes and it does the trick as Aubrey relaxes with a soft laugh. She drops her voice then, leaning in to say, “I didn’t know he was in town.”  

“Long story,” Aubrey whispers, fingers curling around Stacie’s hip. “I’ll text you about it.”  

“I’ll be eagerly waiting,” she says with a small smile.  

Wyatt loudly, _annoyingly_ , clears his throat and it takes all of Stacie’s willpower not to roll her eyes.  

“Bye,” Aubrey says pointedly. “I’ll see you in four days.”  

“Bye,” Stacie says and she stands stock-still as Aubrey steps closer, leans up and quickly kisses her lips.  

Stacie’s still not quite used to the motions, to how normal they’re supposed to look doing it even though she knows that they’re pulling it off effortlessly. 

It’s over so quickly and Aubrey ducks her head and is already moving to grab her bag when Wyatt’s voice breaks into the hurricane of feelings happening inside Stacie’s brain.  

“You call that a kiss?” he mumbles and follows it up with a dry chuckle, eyebrows raised as he pointedly doesn’t look at them, focused instead on his cufflinks.  

“What did you say?” Aubrey asks sharply, and when Stacie collects herself enough to take a cursory glance down Aubrey’s body, she can see Aubrey’s fingers twitching and the immense effort it must be taking her not to do something rash like wrap her hands around Wyatt’s neck.  

Wyatt hums as he badly pretends to be shaken from his thoughts to look at them. “It’s nothing.”  

“You clearly have something to say,” Stacie throws back, raises an eyebrow to encourage him as her fingers tangle with Aubrey’s and squeeze softly to try and keep her calm.  

“It’s nothing, it’s just… your wife is going away for a few days and that’s how you kiss her goodbye?” Wyatt says, shrugs as if it doesn’t matter but they all know he’s doing it on purpose to try and get a rise out of them. “Pretty sure I’ve kissed my grandmother with more passion.”  

An odd addendum, Stacie has to admit, but she’s not going to stick on that point because the issue, of course, isn’t a kiss. They’ve kissed before — _of course_ they’ve kissed before; nobody lives in the Bella House without at least one drunken spin the bottle game that devolves into kissing each other — but this is more than just a quick press of lips for the sake of selling a faux-marriage. What Wyatt is egging them onto, what he wants to see, is much more than that and this isn’t something they’ve discussed before.  

She has no idea where Aubrey stands on this and her traitorous heart is all-too-willing to think rationally about it but when she takes another look at her, Stacie can see how much Aubrey wants it, how much she needs to challenge Wyatt and whatever he seems to think their relationship is or isn’t, how much she wants to make a point.  

Since slowly, tentatively figuring herself and her feelings out, Stacie has spent one too many nights imagining what it would be like to just kiss her and this scenario hadn’t ever made it into any of those fantasies but she has to admit that is so incredibly _them_  that she finally gives in, uses their clasped hands to twist Aubrey’s body towards her, her free hand coming up to curl around the back of Aubrey’s neck, fingers tangling in the wisps of blonde hair there.  

“You don’t have to,” Aubrey whispers, a futile attempt but Stacie’s feeling too selfish and too spiteful to deny her this so she just smiles and leans down, pressing their lips together firmly.  

Aubrey melts, tilts her head up for better access as she kisses Stacie back, mouth parting at Stacie’s urging and when she licks into Aubrey’s mouth, the sweet sigh she lets out is like music to Stacie’s ears.  

Stacie wants to pull back, afraid of getting too lost in the kiss but Aubrey doesn’t let her go, hands sweeping along her hips and to her back, one of them sliding into the back pocket of her jeans to keep her close as she presses the length of her body against Stacie’s.  

The feeling of her so close and the faint taste of those peppermint candies Aubrey keeps on her desk is alluring and Stacie wraps her arm around Aubrey’s waist even though the woman has made no indication that she plans to move away and when she tightens her hold, Aubrey sighs again and it’s a sound that Stacie’s quickly getting very addicted to and in a momentary lapse of judgment she tugs at Aubrey’s lower lip just to hear it again.  

Aubrey doesn’t disappoint, body melting against Stacie’s and Stacie’s getting dangerously close to the point of completely losing herself and revealing too much and it physically pains her to have to pull away so she takes just another moment, a final caress of her tongue and savours Aubrey’s sigh before her fingers slide away from Aubrey’s neck, intent on urging her back.  

Wyatt clears his throat, does it a second time to get their attention and because she’d already been retreating, Stacie hears him and pulls away first, breathing stunted as she cups Aubrey’s jaw, a wise decision when Aubrey sways forwards as if wanting to reconnect their lips and Stacie’s too weak to deny her fully, pecking her lips quickly with a finality to it before turning her head to face Wyatt, giving Aubrey a moment to catch her breath.  

“What?” she asks, voice a little lower than usual to hide how flushed her entire body feels.  

“We have to go,” Wyatt says, trying for an impatient tone but falling far from it, his surprise at the scene before him more than obvious and Stacie takes some sick pleasure in how shocked he looks.  

“I thought you wanted me to kiss my wife goodbye?” Stacie says sharply. Her challenging stance doesn’t last long because Aubrey sighs softly again, her breath fanning over Stacie’s neck and she has to turn to look at her, taking in the sight of a freshly kissed Aubrey.  

“I didn’t mean for you two to make out in our office lobby,” he says, and out of the corner of her eye Stacie can see his fingers catch on the sleeve of his dress shirt and tug, pulling the pristine white fabric just the slightest bit further out of his suit jacket sleeve.  

“Why do you think I only gave her a quick kiss before?” Stacie says, voice taking on a rakish quality as she appears to ravish Aubrey with her eyes but what she’s actually doing is checking to make sure Aubrey’s okay. The corners of her mouth twitch up and Stacie almost sighs in relief before remembering the front they’re putting up. “I know we get carried away.”  

“Come here,” Aubrey says, voice hoarse and it takes all of Stacie’s far more effort than she’s willing to admit not to moan softly at the sound, or worse, lean in for another passionate kiss. “You have some lipstick.”  

Aubrey’s explanation seems weak as her eyes flash darkly, thumb reaching up to wipe away the remnants of her own lipstick on Stacie’s lips, before she kisses Stacie’s lips again, another quick peck that steals the breath from Stacie’s lungs and sends her heart rate into overdrive.  

“There,” she says with a decisive nod.  

“All good?” Stacie asks, thumb gentle on Aubrey’s cheek, waiting for Aubrey to meet her eyes.  

“All good,” she says with a small nod.  

Stacie knows they’re not just talking about the lipstick but Wyatt clears his throat again and they’re snapped out of their bubble, Aubrey rolling her eyes as she turns to the man with an annoyed look.  

“Can we go?” he asks impatiently, gesturing to his wristwatch and Aubrey sighs as she steps out of Stacie’s embrace and Stacie’s arms suddenly feel so empty.  

“Thank you for bringing this,” Aubrey says to Stacie, gesturing to the weekend bag still resting at their feet.  

“You’re always welcome,” Stacie says with a smile, tucking her hands into her pockets to keep from reaching out again. “Have a safe flight.”  

“Thank you,” Aubrey says. “I’ll text you when we land.”  

“Appreciate it,” Stacie says, waits for Aubrey to meet her eyes and the brightness in those eyes fans the flames in her heart and conscious of Wyatt’s watching their every move, she steps closer just to drop a quick kiss to Aubrey’s temple. “Love you. Bye.”  

“Bye,” Aubrey says, voice soft as she watches Stacie step away. “I love you, too.”  

Stacie turns and walks backwards long enough to wink at Aubrey and let her eyes rake down the woman’s body a final time.  

“Stace—!” Aubrey says, eyes going wide but Stacie corrects course just in time to avoid bumping into Aubrey and Wyatt’s respective assistants, throwing up a hand to acknowledge the warning before sidestepping the two and leaving the building.  

Wyatt makes a small sound that Aubrey can’t place but she doesn’t pay him any mind, grabs her bag and straightens before striding over to Jane, desperately ignoring the odd feeling curling comfortably in her stomach and the residual tingling on her lips.  

“Let’s go.”  

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh but I am so curious to hear from you so leave a comment below :)


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